WILLIAM  WORDSWORTH 

HIS    LIFE,    WORKS,   AND    INFLUENCE 


WILLIAM 
WORDSWORTH 

HIS  LIFE,  WORKS,  AND  INFLUENCE 
BY    GEORGE    McLEAN    HARPER 

PROFESSOR   IN    PRINCETON   UNIVERSITY  ;   AUTHOR   OF 
"MASTERS    OF    FRENCH    LITERATURE"    AND    A    "  LIFE   OF    CHARLES-AUGUSTIN   SAINTE-BEUVE  " 


A  man  of  uncommon  genius  is  a  man  of  high  passions 
and  lofty  design." — William  Godwin 


VOL.  I. 


NEW    YORK 

CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS 

597-599   FIFTH  AVENUE 

1916 

2 


Printed  in  England 


TO 

MY    DEAR   WIFE 

WHO    HAS    SHARED    THE    JOYS    AND    TOIL    OF 
THIS   WORK 


I4lb 

PREFACE 

Love  of  Wordsworth's  poetry,  and  a  feeling  that  its 
appeal  to  others  might  be  increased  if  the  facts  of  his 
life  and  the  extent  of  his  connection  with  the  Revolu- 
tionary movement  were  more  fully  set  forth,  led  me, 
more  than  ten  years  ago,  to  undertake  this  work.  His 
first  biographer,  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  who  was  his 
nephew,  presented  to  the  world  a  very  inadequate 
portrait,  in  which  the  romantic  and  insubordinate  youth 
of  the  poet  was  overlaid  with  the  decorous  and  only 
mildly  interesting  features  of  his  old  age.  The  mere 
physical  proportions  of  the  Bishop's  "  Memoirs  "  show 

*  what  an  opportunity  he  lost.     Nearly  two-thirds  of  that 
r    work  was   devoted   to  the  poet's  later  years,  when  his 

personal  and  literary  adventures  were  at  an  end,  and  he 
had  given  up  his  gallant  struggle  on  behalf  of  equality 
q  and  simplicity.  Only  eight  pages,  for  example,  in  a 
^  total  of  about  one  thousand,  dealt  with  what  was  by 
J  far  the  most  momentous  period  of  the  poet's  life — 
r»    namely,  his  residence  in  France.     There  were  reasons 

*  for  this  reticence — theological,  political,  and   domestic 
reasons — which  influenced  the  Bishop,  but  may  be  now 

.    disregarded. 

r—    Unfortunately,  Professor  Knight,  in  his  voluminous 
*j   "  Life,"  was  affected  by  the  same  restrictions,  and  his 
J    work  follows,  in  general,  the  same  scheme  of  values  as 
■J    the  "  Memoirs."     Nothing  could  be  more  injurious  to 
the  spread  of  that  affection  and  respect  for  Wordsworth 
which  are  greatly  to  be  desired,  than  to  give  dispropor- 
tionate prominence  to  anecdotes  connected  with  his  old 
age,  when  his  fame  was  almost  equalled  by  his  want  of 


viii  PREFACE 

tact,  and  when  one  of  the  purposes  dearest  to  his  heart 
was  to  disparage  the  social  ideals  of  his  early  manhood. 
Of  Professor  Emile  Legouis's  perfect  book,  "  La  Jeunesse 
de  Wordsworth,"  I  can  speak  only  in  terms  of  the 
deepest  admiration.  His  assurance  that  he  did  not 
intend  to  continue  it  encouraged  me  to  complete  my 
work.  "  La  Jeunesse  de  Wordsworth,"  moreover,  is 
rather  a  critical  essay  than  a  biography,  even  for  the 
period  it  covers,  though,  indeed,  its  biographical  ele- 
ments are  fresh  and  well  chosen. 

I  have  had  particularly  in  mind,  as  possible  bene- 
ficiaries of  my  work,  the  large  class  of  persons  who  have 
a  certain  acquaintance  with  Wordsworth's  poetry,  but 
have  shut  their  minds  against  the  richer  blessings  of 
his  influence  for  one  or  more  of  the  following  reasons : 
His  personality  for  them  does  not  exist;  he  loses  the 
advantage  possessed  by  Burns,  for  example,  and  Byron, 
who  are  distinct  human  figures.  Or  they  think  they 
are  acquainted  with  his  personality,  and  mean  by 
"  Wordsworth"  the  sage  of  Rydal  Mount,  the  "  Daddy 
Wordsworth  "  of  Edward  Fitzgerald,  a  man  absorbed 
in  the  contemplation  of  flowers  and  domestic  animals, 
satisfied  to  put  into  verse  the  accepted  philosophy  of 
his  age  and  country,  and  quite  incapable  of  affecting,  or, 
indeed,  of  being  deeply  affected  by,  the  political  issues 
of  his  time.  To  think  thus  of  Wordsworth  is,  of  course, 
ignorant  and  presumptuous,  but  it  is  common.  By 
some  he  is  regarded  with  complacency  as  a  pious  de- 
fender of  the  faith;  by  some  as  the  voice  of  English 
patriotism  launching  invectives  against  Napoleon  and 
furnishing  apt  quotations  for  a  modern  instance.  I 
wish  to  do  what  I  can  to  replace  these  narrow  views 
with  the  image  of  a  very  great  poet,  and  to  give  an  idea 
of  what  that  means;  to  show  him  as  a  youth  inspired 
with  faith  that  he  was  called  to  a  divine  mission,  as  a 
young  man  burning  with  zeal  for  his  fellow-men  and 
with  the  fire  of  a  generous  philosophy,  daring  much, 
enduring  much,  renouncing  much,  for  the  sake  of  his 


PREFACE  ix 

beliefs;  as  a  mature  man  vainly  striving,  as  all  men  do, 
to  reconcile  worldly  success  with  high  ideals,  and  attain- 
ing meanwhile  consummate  technical  skill  and  critical 
authority;  as  an  old  man  prematurely  broken  by  the 
violence  of  his  feelings,  then  as  ever,  under  all  the  graces 
of  his  nature,  a  hard  block  of  human  granite.  And 
especially  I  wish  to  show  that  he  had  a  right,  based  on 
personal  experience  and  conviction,  to  represent  and 
interpret  the  Revolution.  We  are  struck  with  the 
"  coincidence  "  that  he,  who  was  destined  to  be  the 
imaginative  critic  of  the  Revolution,  was  born  in  1770, 
just  in  time  to  be  nineteen  years  old  at  the  fall  of  the 
Bastille.  It  is  more  logical  to  think  that  if  there  had 
been  no  uprising  in  France  there  would  have  been  no 
Wordsworth,  no  English  poet  capable  of  making  an  im- 
perishable record  of  such  an  event.  Instead  of  being 
remote  from  public  life,  he  was,  with  the  single  exception 
of  Milton,  the  most  political  of  all  our  great  poets. 

I  now  come  to  the  pleasantest  part  of  my  long  task, 
the  expression  of  indebtedness  and  gratitude  to  those 
who  have  helped  me.  And  first  I  recall  with  reverence 
the  sunny  mornings  of  a  happy  childhood  when  my 
mother  trained  me  to  memorize  Wordsworth's  poems, 
and  instilled  into  my  heart  a  love  for  his  name.  It  was, 
I  believe,  at  the  suggestion  of  my  wife,  and  largely 
because  of  her  love  for  Wordsworth,  that  I  undertook 
to  write  this  book.  In  hours  of  discouragement  she 
has  held  me  to  my  task,  and  at  all  times  her  help  has 
proved  invaluable.  To  M.  Legouis  I  am  grateful,  not 
only  for  his  book— which  is  beyond  praise,  and  has  estab- 
lished a  new  standard  in  English  biography  (for  it  has 
been  perfectly  translated) — but  for  many  valuable  sug- 
gestions made  to  me  in  private.  Mr.  Gordon  Words- 
worth, the  poet's  grandson,  has  generously  placed  at 
my  disposal  much  unprinted  material,  has  allowed  me 
to  examine  the  manuscripts  of  Dorothy  Wordsworth's 
Journals,  and  has  assisted  me  in  matters  of  interpreta- 
tion as  well  as  in  matters  of  fact.     He  and  Mr.  Frank  E. 


x  PREFACE 

Marshall  have  permitted  me  to  copy  and  print  Dorothy 
Wordsworth's  letters  to  Jane  Pollard,  Mr.  Marshall's 
grandmother,  which  are  in  Mr.  Marshall's  possession.  Mr. 
Wordsworth  has  also  given  me  permission  to  print  hitherto 
unpublished  letters  and  parts  of  letters  from  his  grand- 
father, which  are  now  in  the  British  Museum  and  Dr. 
Williams's  Library.  To  Professor  Knight  and  Messrs. 
Ginn  and  Co.  I  am  indebted  for  permission  to  quote 
extensively  from  "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family." 
Professor  Knight's  edition  of  Dorothy  Wordsworth's 
Journals  has  also  been  of  assistance.  I  am  very  grateful 
to  Mr.  Ernest  Hartley  Coleridge,  not  only  for  permission 
to  quote  from  his  invaluable  edition  of  his  grandfather's 
letters  and  from  "  Anima  Poetae,"  but  for  some  precious 
personal  reminiscences  and  family  traditions.  Mr. 
E.  V.  Lucas  has  kindly  consented  to  my  quoting  from 
letters  in  his  noble  edition  of  the  "  Works  of  Charles  and 
Mary  Lamb."  To  the  most  accurate  of  Wordsworth- 
ians,  Mr.  Thomas  Hutchinson,  editor  of  the  Oxford 
Wordsworth,"  I  wish  to  express  my  homage  for  his 
self-sacrificing  work  and  my  thanks  for  his  assistance  in 
several  difficulties.  It  gives  me  great  pleasure  to  ex- 
press my  gratitude  to  Miss  Arnold  of  Fox  How,  and  Mrs. 
Tyson  of  Rydal,  for  personal  recollections  and  items  of 
local  interest;  to  the  late  Henry  J.  Roby  of  Lancrigg, 
who  honoured  me  with  his  encouragement ;  to  Dr.  Elmer 
Johnson,  of  Wolfenbiittel,  and  my  friend  the  Rev. 
Ambrose  W.  Vernon,  of  Brookline,  Massachusetts,  who 
at  my  request  made  difficult  researches  at  Goslar;  to 
M.  A.  Trouessart  and  M.  P.  Dufay  of  Blois,  and  the 
librarian  of  Orleans ;  to  Professor  George  Herbert  Palmer, 
of  Harvard,  who  lent  me  several  extremely  valuable 
first  editions  of  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge ;  to  Professor 
Lane  Cooper  of  Cornell;  to  the  staff  of  the  Princeton 
University  Library,  and  a  former  member  of  that  staff, 
Professor  W.  H.  Clemons,  of  the  University  of  Nanking; 
to  Professor  Arthur  Lovejoy,  of  the  Johns  Hopkins 
University;  to  Mr.  Herford,  of  Dr.  Williams's  Library, 


PREFACE  xi 

London,  for  assistance  in  consulting  the  Crabb  Robinson 
manuscripts;  and  to  Miss  Mary  White,  for  permitting 
me  to  read  the  correspondence  on  Wordsworth  between 
Mr.  Thomas  Hutchinson  and  her  father,  the  late  W. 
Hale  White.  A  portion  of  the  passage  on  Rousseau, 
Godwin,  and  Wordsworth  originally  appeared  as  an 
article  in  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  and  some  of  the  matter 
about  Wordsworth  at  Blois  I  contributed  in  the  first 
instance  to  the  New  York  Nation. 

G.  M.  H. 

Princeton  University, 
July  9,  1915. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOL.   I 


CHAPTER 

PREFACE 


I.    THE    PERMANENCE    OF    WORDSWORTH 
II.    ORIGINS    AND    CHILDHOOD 

III.  CAMBRIDGE    AND    THE    NORTH     - 

IV.  THE    OPEN    ROAD 
V.    LONDON ADRIFT 

VI.    INFLUENCE    OF    ROUSSEAU 
VII.    IN    REVOLUTIONARY    FRANCE       - 
VIII.    BEAUPUY    AND    BLOIS      - 
IX.    A    REVOLUTIONIST    IN    ENGLAND 
X.    PHILANTHROPIC    PLANS 
Xl.    THE    GODWIN    CIRCLE       - 
XII.    DOROTHY 

XIII.  COLERIDGE 

XIV.  THREE    PERSONS    AND    ONE    SOUL 
XV.    "LYRICAL    BALLADS" 

XVI.    GRASMERE    AND    THE    LAKES 
XVII.    WORDSWORTH    ^HE    CRITIC 


V 


PAGK 

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vii 

- 

I 

- 

-   18 

- 

54 

- 

-   89 

-  105 

-  122 

-  135 

-  161 

-  182 

•  223 

•  251 

-  273 

-  302 

-  330 

*  351 

-  385 

-  413 

XIU 


ILLUSTRATIONS  TO  VOL.   I 

william  Wordsworth,  from  the  shuter  drawing   {Photo- 
gravure)      -----  Frontispiece 

PAGR 

THE    HOUSE    IN    WHICH    WORDSWORTH    WAS    BORN                  To  face  28 

dame  Tyson's  cottage,  hawkshead  -             -             -      „  72 

facsimile  of  letter  from  orleans  -             -             -      „  i46 

william  wordsworth,  from  the  hancock  drawing     „  296 

racedown          ---.---  301 

alfoxden          -------  350 

THE   GOSLAR    HOUSE          -                  -                  -                  -                      To  face  366 

DOVE    COTTAGE,    FROM    THE    FRONT            -                  -                  -           „  394 

FACSIMILE    OF    TAGE    IN    DOROTHY'S    JOURNAL     -                              „  406 

SKETCH-MAP 

THE  WORDSWORTH   COUNTRY           -                <■               •               -     To  face  J 


XV 


w 


WILLIAM    WORDSWORTH 

HIS  LIFE,  WORKS,  AND  INFLUENCE 
CHAPTER  I 

THE  PERMANENCE  OF  WORDSWORTH 

Wordsworth  is  more  widely  read  and  more  often 
quoted  than  any  other  English  poet,  except  Shakespeare 
and  Milton.  He  is  therefore  a  power  in  the  world. 
Countless  thousands  of  English-speaking  men  and 
women  have  died  and  been  forgotten.  The  influence 
of  every  one  of  them  lives,  no  doubt,  and  will  live  for 
ever,  but  only  a  few  survive  by  name  and  with  some 
degree  of  fulness.  His  mind  and  heart,  his  view  of  life 
as  a  whole,  his  most  delicate  perceptions,  his  innermost 
feelings,  are  still  a  part  of  the  spiritual  world  in  which 
we  move,  and  there  is  every  likelihood  that  what  we 
may  call  his  personality  will  continue  to  exist  for 
many  generations. 

I  can  imagine  the  ghosts  of  great  discoverers,  con- 
querors, and  statesmen,  complaining  among  the  shades 
that  they  are  forgotten  in  the  upper  world,  while  poets 
continue  to  walk  in  the  sunshine  of  human  gratitude, 
and  are  as  real  a  thousand  years  after  death  as  when 
they  moved  on  earth.  "  Men  of  action,"  as  they  called 
themselves,  the}'  wonder  why,  not  to  them,  but  to 
poets,  should  be  given  "  the  name  that  honoureth  most 
and  most  endureth."  A  little  reflection  on  the  haunt- 
ing love  of  companionship  which  dwells  in  every  soul 
would  furnish  an  answer.  The  poets  give  us  them- 
selves. They  have  the  simplicity  to  suppose  that  we 
will  care  for  their  confidences.  And  they  possess  an 
art  of  communication  which  is  so  pleasing  to  our  senses 
i.  i 


2  PERMANENCE  OF  WORDSWORTH     [chap,  i 

that,  almost  for  its  sake  alone,  we  should  be  willing  to 
listen. 

The  first  question  we  must  ask,  then,  in  estimating 
the  qualities  of  Wordsworth's  poetry,  which  may  be 
expected  to  give  it  permanence,  concerns  his  possession 
of  artistic  mastery.  And  it  is  certainly  not  overbold 
to  say  that  in  perfection  and  range  of  technical  skill  he 
is  unsurpassed.  Taking  into  account  the  whole  of  his 
poetry,  and  not  merely  the  best  or  the  most  well-known 
part  of  it,  one  is  impressed  with  the  correctness,  the 
vigour,  the  ingenuity,  and  the  variety,  of  his  versifica- 
tion. He  has  attempted  all  things,  accomplished  all 
things.  He  is  rich  in  metrical  forms.  He  has,  if  not 
exhausted,  at  least  more  nearly  drained  than  an}^  other 
poet,  the  treasu^  of  English  rhymes  and  rhythms. 
His  devices  for  entrapping  the  eye  and  ear  are  endless, 
and  are  the  more  subtly  effective  as  they  seldom  obtrude 
themselves  upon  our  attention,  which  he  always  occupies 
with  something  beyond  the  music  and  the  form.  Two 
examples,  chosen  almost  at  random,  may  suffice  to  show 
both  his  natural  felicity  and  his  painstaking  artifice : 

Dark  on  my  road  the  autumnal  evening  fell, 

in  an  inconspicuous  passage  of  "  The  Excursion,"  is  a 
line  so  simple  that  we  might  well  fail  to  realize  how 
perfect  it  is,  how  complete,  how  musically  effective. 
We  feel  the  largeness  and  weight  of  night  closing  down 
upon  the  scene,  but  the  poet's  process  escapes  attention; 
we  take  for  granted  that  he  wrote  this  line  without  con- 
scious effort.  On  the  other  hand,  there  was,  from  1814 
to  1849,  a  line  of  the  same  poem, 

And  no  vain  mirror  glittered  on  the  walls, 

which  he  changed  in  the  last  year  of  his  life  to 
And  no  vain  mirror  glittered  upon  the  walls, 

with  the  evident  intention  of  producing  a  tinkle  and 
patter  of  syllables  to  express  the  frivolity,  the  incon- 
stant flashing,  required  by  the  context. 

His  diction,  too,  and  syntax  are  of  vast  range  and 
singular   exactness.     He   keeps,   as   regards   the   gram- 


chap,  i]  ARTISTIC  MASTERY  3 

matical  elements  of  style,  strictly  to  the  sound  English 
tradition.  To  an  uncommon  extent  his  language  is 
free  from  learned  affectations  and  ephemeral  fashions.  It 
is  not  encumbered  with  Latinisms  as  is  the  language  of 
Milton,  or  with  Gallicisms  as  the  language  of  Pope, 
or  with  whimsical  and  short  -  lived  words  such  as 
make  half  the  difficulty  in  reading  the  Elizabethans, 
or  with  inkhorn  terms  and  crude  borrowings  from 
recondite  specialities,  which  mark  for  neglect  the  works 
of  many  a  poet,  from  Ben  Jonson  to  Browning.  He 
was  an  observant  and  purposeful  student  of  our  elder 
poets,  of  Chaucer  and  Spenser  and  Shakespeare,  of 
Drayton  and  Daniel  and  Milton,  of  Dryden  and  Collins 
and  Gray.  His  is  pure  English  and  undefined.  With 
only  the  very  smallest  allowance  for  exceptions,  we  may 
say  that  his  language  would  have  passed  current  at  any 
time  in  the  last  three  hundred  and  fifty  years.  This  is 
some  guarantee  of  its  future  acceptance.  In  the  main 
it  is  not  charged  with  a  temporal  alloy,  is  not  the  product 
of  a  "  movement  "  or  a  "  period,"  is  neither  Classical 
nor  Romantic,  is  no  more  Georgian  than  Victorian,  is 
not  a  revival,  is  not  local,  is  not  exotic,  is  not  pedantic. 
Particular  gratitude  is  due  to  him  for  not  overloading  \ 
his  works  with  references  to  ancient  mythology. 

In  one  respect,  at  least,  the  quality  of  Wordsworth's 
thought  matches  the  breadth  of  his  style.  His  mind 
was  excessively  masculine;  yet  through  almost  lifelong 
association  with  gifted  women,  and  a  peculiar  depend- 
ence upon  womanly  sympathy,  his  natural  asperity 
became  tempered  with  feminine  tenderness,  and  his  dis- 
position to  generalize  was  balanced  by  a  feminine 
interest  in  particulars.  Still,  he  is  the  most  philo- 
sophical of  all  our  great  poets ;  he  dwells  in  a  region  of 
ideas,  which  he  endeavours  to  correlate  to  the  sum  of 
human  experience.  In  all  things,  animate  or  inanimate,! 
he  perceives  a  spiritual  life.  The  strength  of  this  per- 
ception and  the  faith  with  which  he  tries  to  impart  it  to 
other  minds  make  him  a  seer  and  prophet.  Yet  he 
neither  repels  a  simple-hearted  reader  by  setting  up  a/ 
system,  nor  creates  distrust   by   professing  to  enjoy    a  l 


4  PERMANENCE  OF  WORDSWORTH     [chap,  i 

mystical  illumination.  There  is  a  moral  of  some  sort 
in  almost  all  his  poems.  He  professes,  with  good  reason, 
to  be  a  teacher.  His  passages  of  abstract  reasoning 
sometimes  tire  all  but  the  most  sound-winded  followers. 

On  the  other  hand,  except  Dante,  no  poet  capable  of 
sustaining  such  flights  is  more  rich  in  concrete  detail. 
Things  in  themselves  interest  him,  apart  from  their 
possible  connection  with  the  mind  of  man  or  their  share 
in  the  great  soul  of  nature.  He  enjo}7s  them  and  finds 
it  worth  while  to  describe  them,  for  the  sake  of  their 
inherent  attractiveness,  quite  apart  from  their  ulterior 
significance.  Whether  he  would  have  subscribed  to 
the  statement  that  the  external  world  is  a  symbol  of  the 
Infinite  Idea,  I  very  much  doubt.  There  were  moments 
when  he  said  so ;  but  when  he  is  most  himself  he  is  most 
content  with  nature  as  reality  and  not  symbol.  He 
never  taught  that  nature  existed  as  an  object-lesson. 
He  did  not,  in  his  prime,  habitually  think  of  nature  as 
leading  up  to  God ;  he  thought  of  nature  as  having  the 
Life  of  Life  abiding  in  her.  With  reverence,  then,  as 
well  as  curiosity  and  delight,  did  he  note  her  features. 
Until  his  powers  and  his  courage  for  independent  vision 
had  begun  to  fail,  he  did  not  accept  the  view,  so  para- 
lyzing to  the  pursuit  and  enjoyment  of  knowledge,  that 
it  is  impious  to  study  nature  except  as  we  behold  in  her 
a  warning  or  a  stage  to  an  inconceivable  life  beyond. 
He  dealt  with  this  goodly  frame  more  worthify,  accept- 
ing the  "  joy  in  widest  commonalty  spread." 

But  if  a  great  poet  owes  his  place  among  his  peers  to 
qualities  of  style  and  thought  that  are  traditionally 
acceptable,  there  may  yet  be  room  in  him  for  peculiarities 
of  a  local,  temporary,  or  personal  kind.  Indeed,  if  he  is 
to  win  a  life  of  his  own  in  our  affections  he  must  possess 
these.  Otherwise,  to  establish  his  generality  he  would 
have  stripped  himself  of  the  traits  which  give  to  every 
human  being  a  something  all  his  own.  There  is  much  in 
Wordsworth's  versification,  language,  choice  of  sub- 
jects, and  mode  of  thought,  that  belongs  to  him  alone; 
much,  also,  that  belongs  to  his  age;  and  not  a  little  that 
is    local.     He    experimented    boldly,   and    was    deeply 


chap.i]  PECULIAR  QUALITIES  5 

moved  by  sympathies  which  made  him  willing  to  risk 
the  disapproval  of  even  very  excellent  judges.  His 
peculiarities  have  at  different  times  and  for  various 
reasons  repelled  readers.  At  first  there  w~as  the  com~ 
plaint  that  his  characters  and  diction  were  "  low." 
Then  a  certain  class  objected  that  his  philosophy  was 
unorthodox,  that  it  was  materialistic,  or  at  least  pan- 
theistic. Later  it  was  discovered  that  it  was  mystical 
and  out  of  touch  with  an  age  of  reason  and  science. 
The  style  of  his  longer  works  has  by  some  been  deemed 
too  vague  and  ecstatic;  by  others,  hard  and  uninspired. 
Notwithstanding  the  wide  scope  and  general  applic- 
ability of  his  works,  he  is  still  mentioned  now  and  then 
as  "  one  of  the  Lake  poets."  He  is  likewise  known  as 
a  poet  for  children,  though  perhaps  more  commonly  as 
the  poet  best  fitted  to  console  the  afflicted,  restore  the 
erring,  and  comfort  the  aged. 

After  all,  it  is  greatly  to  Wordsworth's  advantage 
that  there  is  a  certain  amount  of  truth  in  ever}*  one  of 
these  limited  views.  They  prove  that  he  is  not  to  be] 
disposed  of  in  a  formula.  They  show  how  immensely/ 
varied  his  excellence  is,  how  wide  his  appeal,  how  he 
transcends  and  embraces  the  special  domains  of  almost 
all  English  poets  who  were  his  contemporaries.  Some 
of  the  features  of  his  work  that  were  once  peculiar  to 
him,  or  to  him  and  Coleridge,  have  now  in  large  measure 
become  elements  in  the  method  of  all  poets,  in  even- 
land.  In  any  case,  his  idiosyncrasies  enrich  the  sum 
of  his  value  by  giving  personal  colour  to  his  pages  and 
living  them  from  that  featureless  perfection  which  we 
acknowledge  languidly  in  Racine,  for  example,  and 
Lamartine  and  Schiller.  It  is  precisely  and  solely  on 
this  account  that  Milton's  grotesque  polemical  sonnets 
are  indispensable:  they  add  a  touch  of  umber  to  the 
colours  in  his  portrait.  We  could  not  spare  them.  But 
this  is  an  extreme  instance;  in  Wordsworth's  case  the 
peculiarities  are  for  the  most  part  really  admirable  in 
themselves.  It  is  an  enrichment  of  his  art  that  the 
great  interpreter  of  universal  nature  should  have  known 
every  foot  of  ground  in  one  or  two  narrow  valleys;  for 


6  PERMANENCE  OF  WORDSWORTH     [chap,  i 

the  whole  being  the  sum  of  all  its  parts,  not  to  know 
intimately  at  least  one  part  disables  the  judgment  of  a 
philosopher,  and  how  much  more  the  insight  of  a  poet  ! 
Wordsworth  studied  with  what  seemed  a  petty  curiosity 
certain  individuals,  preferably  simple  souls,  in  an  effort 
to  divine  their  motives  and  resources.  He  has  been 
foolishly  blamed  for  taking  so  much  interest  in  paupers, 
idiots,  weak  old  men,  and  quite  ordinary  children.  His 
justification  blazes  forth  in  many  a  hundred  lines  of 
high  political  wisdom.     He  found  his  way,  through  the 

(least  defended  approaches,  to  the  inner  recesses  of  human 
character.  He  became  like  a  little  child  or  like  a  poor 
beggar,  and  learned  what  man  is.  With  the  knowledge 
thus  acquired  of  human  needs  and  passions,  he  was  able 
to  understand,  better  even  than  Byron  or  Shelley,  the 
effect  of  the  French  Revolution  upon  the  feelings  and 
conduct  of  men  in  all  classes  of  society. 

Of  course,  even  a  sound  and  vigorous  style  would  not 
suffice  to  win  and  hold  for  any  poet  a  position  such  as 
Wordsworth's.  There  must  also  be  an  altogether  uncom- 
mon weight  of  character,  intensity  of  emotional  force, 
and  reach  of  intellect.  To  note  and  estimate  these  is 
the  special  task  of  biography.  In  Wordsworth's  case  we 
have  to  take  into  account  not  only  poetry,  but  several 
/prose  compositions,  which  deal  with  subjects  so  diverse 
\J  as  politics  and  the  principles  of  aesthetics.  His  opinions, 
whenever  he  gives  definite  expression  to  them,  are  found 
to  be  rooted  in  some  principle  below  the  surface.  They 
are  original  in  that  they  are  a  part  of  his  very  self.  He 
utters  them  grudgingly,  as  if  loath  to  part  with  what  has 
been  so  long  cherished.  Even  when  they  concern 
matters  of  seeming  indifference,  or  upon  which,  at  least, 
no  momentous  consequences  appear  to  hang,  they  are 
so  personal  to  him,  and  have  been  so  long  pondered  by 
him,  that  they  carry  some  of  the  heat  and  passion  of 
his  soul.  That  they  do  not  cohere  in  a  system  is  due  to 
the  fact  that  his  life,  if  reckoned  by  convictions  and 
feelings,  was  broken  in  the  middle.  Up  to  a  certain 
point  he  was  guided  by  hope;  later  he  was  driven  by 
fear.     The  two  halves  of  his  life  are  incongruous. 


chap,  i]  THE  BREAK  IN  HIS  LIFE  7 

The  extent  of  the  difference  has  never  been  fully 
appreciated,  because  it  is  not  so  perceptible  in  his 
poetry  as  it  is  in  his  letters  and  the  reports  of  his  con- 
versation that  have  come  down  to  us.  A  careful  study, 
not  only  of  what  he  said  and  wrote,  but  of  what  others 
said  and  wrote  to  him  and  about  him,  makes  it  quite  clear 
that  in  the  second  half  of  his  life  he  cursed  what  he  once 
blessed,  and  blessed  what  he  once  cursed.  The  transi- 
tion was  fairly  rapid,  and  it  was  complete.  Moreover, 
it  affected  his  poetry,  affected  not  merely  the  subjects 
he  chose  and  the  general  direction  in  which  he  turned 
his  thoughts  and  feelings,  but  even  the  choice  of  words 
and  the  structure  of  his  verse.  As  I  believe  that  Words- 
worth has  influenced  the  tone  of  English  and  American 
thought,  for  the  last  seventy  or  eighty  3'ears,  more  than 
any  other  poet  who  lived  in  the  nineteenth  century,  I 
have  found  much  dramatic  interest  in  the  play  and 
counter-play  of  two  contending  forces  operating  in  him. 
In  either  period,  considered  by  itself,  there  is  essential 
unity;  his  conduct,  his  doctrine,  and  the  works  of  his 
imagination,  are  consistent  with  one  another.  But  the 
Wordsworth  of  1 816  is  a  different  man  from  the  Words- 
worth of  1 800.  Since  it  is  that  later  man  whom  we 
find  represented  in  a  dozen  portraits  and  innumerable 
anecdotes,  and  not  often  to  his  advantage,  the  earlier 
and  far  more  attractive  Wordsworth  is  almost  entirely 
obscured.  There  is,  to  be  sure,  less  material  for  getting 
acquainted  with  that  fiery  and  adventurous  youth,  now 
dead  for  more  than  a  century,  than  with  the  famous  old 
man  who  died  in  1850  and  was  known  to  a  few  persons 
who  are  still  living. 

Investigation  of  those  earlier  years  is  all  the  more 
thrilling  because,  while  some  of  them  are  revealed  to  us 
with  remarkable  fulness  in  his  sister's  letters  and 
journals  and  in  the  poet's  own  works  and  those  of 
Coleridge,  and  show  him  in  a  light  as  attractive  as  it  is 
clear,  other  periods,  of  many  months'  duration,  are 
shrouded  in  mystery.  An  additional  touch  of  romance 
is  imparted  by  the  presence  of  that  sister,  herself  a 
genius,  full  of  originality  and  charm,  and  by  the  friend- 


8  PERMANENCE  OF  WORDSWORTH     [chap,  i 

ship  of  both  these  wayward  spirits  with  Coleridge,  a  r 
community  of  mind  unique  in  human  story.  These 
"  three  persons  and  one  soul  "  represent  the  fine  flower 
of  English  literary  culture  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
and  the  beginning  of  much  that  was  most  distinctive 
and  valuable  in  the  nineteenth.  When  they  wandered 
together,  heart  in  heart,  "  on  sunny  Quantock's  airy 
ridge,"  or  held  high  converse  in  the  bare  little  cottage 
at  Grasmere,  they  were  moulding,  in  no  small  degree/ 
the  intellectual  destiny  of  future  generations,  estab- 
lishing a  fresh  style  in  poetry,  and  especially  creating 
a  new  and  vitalizing  sense  of  the  relation  between  poetry 
and  life. 

Poetry  was  to  be  no  longer  regarded  as  a  merel}" 
decorative  art.  It  was  to  spring  more  than  ever  from 
experience  and  to  bear  more  than  ever  upon  conduct. 
It  was  to  be  less  academic  and  exclusive,  and  by  be- 
coming simpler  in  form  was  to  appeal  to  a  larger 
audience.  Yet  the  broadening-down  has  been  accom- 
plished without  recourse  to  vulgarizing  methods.  No 
one  can  say  that  Wordsworth's  influence  has  had  the 
effect  of  blunting  the  poetical  sensibilities  of  our  race. 
On  the  contrary,  while  poetry  and  every  art  associated 
with  poetry  have  through  his  efforts  become  more 
popular,  they  have  also  attained  superior  delicacy. 
New  powers  of  perception  have  been  awakened,  and 
exquisite  workings  of  emotion  have  been  for  the  first 
time  recognized.  Humanity  at  large  has  been  found 
immensely  more  interesting  and  important  than  even 
the  choicest  selection  from  its  more  favoured  classes. 
In  nature  herself,  contemplated  with  a  wider  glance  and 
a  freer  curiosity,  many  objects  previously  unregarded  or 
even  despised  have  been  found  to  possess  fine  moral 
and  aesthetic  values.  Like  many  another  experiment 
in  democracy,  in  which,  after  much  delay,  hesitation, 
and  prophesying  of  evil,  it  has  been  decided  to  open  to 
profane  feet  some  ancient  preserve  of  opportunity  and 
enjoyment,  this  appeal  to  wider  circles  has  been  amply 
justified  by  results.  Strange  as  it  may  at  first  seem, 
the  fact  is  that  in  proportion  as  poetry  has  become  less 


chap,  i]  HIS  TRUTH  TO  NATURE  9 

aristocratic  it  has  become  more  refined,  and  that  by 
being  universalized  it  has  become  more  sacred.  We 
require  from  poets  a  stricter  warrant  of  heaven-given 
authority  than  our  forefathers  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury insisted  upon.  We  are  less  easily  contented  with 
talent  and  clever  workmanship,  or  even  with  mere 
intellectual  power  and  emotional  violence.  Words- 
worth taught  us  to  expect  that  a  poet  should  be  a 
dedicated  spirit,  obliged  by  a  sense  of  his  calling  and 
enabled  by  his  genius  to  conceive  of  nature  and  of  human 
life  more  worthily  than  other  men. 

A  further  reason  for  believing  that  Wordsworth  will 
hold  a  permanent  place  in  English  literature  is  that 
still,  after  the  lapse  of  two  generations,  he  remains  pre- 
eminent among  our  poets,  from  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury to  the  twentieth,  for  the  truth  of  his  report  about 
nature.  None  of  his  successors  has  equalled  him  in 
this.  In  his  own  phrase,  he  wrote  "  with  his  eye  on  the  t 
object."  From  the  beginning,  this  has  not  been  the 
practice  of  poets  nearly  so  much  as  is  often  supposed. 
Some  of  the  most  famous  describers  of  nature  in  an- 
tiquity deceive  us,  very  attractively  to  be  sure,  but  yet 
deceive  us,  into  crediting  them  with  a  knowledge  of  her 
which  they  either  did  not  possess  or  did  not  permit 
themselves  to  exercise.  The  "  Idyls  "  of  Theocritus 
are  the  most  exquisite  and  simple  of  all  pastorals;  yet 
his  swains  are  not  real  Sicilian  shepherds.  Virgil  in 
his  "  Eclogues,"  and  even  in  the  "  Georgics,"  rarely 
shows  more  than  a  literary  or  imaginative  acquaintance 
with  details  of  rural  life.  For  the  language  of  the  farm 
and  village  these  poets  substituted  another,  delightful 
in  itself  and  possibly  more  memorable,  but  never  caught 
from  human  lips.  Euripides,  in  his  descriptive  passages, 
made  a  characteristically  bold  attempt  to  step  outside 
tradition.  But  Dante  alone,  of  all  great  descriptive  poets 
before  the  time  of  WTordsworth,  emancipated  himself 
almost  completely  from  the  pleasant  yoke  of  borrowed 
phrases,  and  subjected  himself  to  the  far  more  rigorous 
discipline  of  natural  truth  observed  with  his  own  eyes 
and    ears.     Nine-tenths    of    Shakespeare's    descriptions 


io  PERMANENCE  OF  WORDSWORTH     [chap,  i 

of  what  we  call  "  out-door  nature  "  will  not  bear  the 
test  which  Wordsworth  imposed  upon  himself;  they  are 
glorious  borrowings.  Milton  describes  with  admirable 
delicacy  of  selection  and  wonderful  artistic  effect;  yet 
he  uses,  probably,  not  more  than  half  a  dozen  epithets 
that  were  original  with  him  or  suggested  directly  by 
objects  he  had  examined.  His  terms  are  the  common 
currency  of  poets.  One  by  one  the  aptest  and  seem- 
ingly freshest  of  them  have  been  traced  to  literary 
sources.  If  poets  have,  since  Wordsworth's  time,  been 
striving,  and  with  very  gratifying  success,  to  report  more 
strictly  of  nature  and  in  words  unencumbered  with  con- 
ventional meaning,  the  credit  is  in  large  measure  due  to 
him.  Poetry  would  have  had  small  chance  of  holding 
its  own  in  the  nineteenth  century  except  by  establishing 
a  strong  claim  to  respect  for  an  exactness  of  its  own,  com- 
parable with  the  exactness  of  science.  Wordsworth's 
poetry,  in  particular,  has  been  enjoyed  by  men  to  whom 
no  other  kind  of  imaginative  writing  appeals.  They 
have  valued  it  for  the  natural  way  in  which  it  rises  to 

I  the  loftiest  flights  from  a  firm  basis  in  observation. 
Others,  having  regard  to  the  end  rather  than  the  be- 
ginning, value  his  poetry  none  the  less  because  it  is 
from  things  plainly  seen  and  intimately  known  that  it 
ascends  to  what  is  beyond  sight  and  beyond  knowledge. 
Wordsworth  was  not,  of  course,  the  only,  or  even 
the  first  poet,  in  his  own  age,  who  took  a  catholic  view 
of  nature  and  employed  an  unconventional  language. 
Goethe,  in  his  early  and  best  3^ears,  had  done  both. 
Rousseau,  though  not  technically  a  poet,  had  shown  a 
new  way  to  poets.  Thomson  had  seen  country  life 
with  his  own  eyes,  and  had  sometimes  described  it  in 
genuine  terms.  Cowper,  with  a  mind  freed  by  its  own 
misfortunes  from  the  ordinary  literary  ambition  of  his 
time,  and  not  striving  to  shine,  had  gone  farther  and 
with  less  wavering  than  any  of  his  predecessors  in  the 
path  of  simplicity  and  precision.  Burns,  whenever  he 
wrote  in  the  Scots  language,  happily  forgot  that  he  was 
a  man  of  letters.  And  as  Cowper  was  fortunately 
isolated  by  his  melancholy,  and  Burns  by  his  poverty, 


chap,  i]  THE  NEW  POETRY  n 

so  Blake,  by  the  strange  peculiarity  of  his  genius,  was 
kept  aloof  from  tradition,  and  sang  a  new  song.  Crabbe, 
also,  for  the  curious  reason  that  he  had  a  rather  low 
opinion  of  poetry,  and  was  more  anxious  to  reach  a 
large  number  of  readers  than  to  please  the  critics,  did 
not  have  to  endure  the  bondage  of  what  was  deemed 
good  form.  It  has  been  customary  to  take  for  granted 
that  we  have  here  the  stages  of  a  literary  movement; 
that  an  impulse  flowed  from  Rousseau,  through  a  series 
of  personal  contacts,  till  it  reached  and  affected  Words- 
worth. 

There  is  something  to  be  said  for  this  view.     Rousseau 
set  men  thinking  about  the  glories  of  equality  as  com- 
pared with  the  glamour  of  distinction.     His  teachings 
may  be  properly  termed  a  religion,  because  they  can  be 
applied   with    transforming   effect    to   every   important 
sphere  of  conduct.     If  a  man  who  accepted  Rousseau's 
political  and  economic  doctrines  happened  to  be  a  poet, 
his  very  diction  would  soon  show  what  had  taken  place  ; 
for  the  doctrines   all   grew  from   one  central  idea,  the 
equality  of  men.     Though  but  one,  it  was  capable  of 
infinite  expansion  and   subdivision.      Being  a  religious 
idea,  it  permeated  the  whole  being  of  him  who  admitted 
it  to  his  heart,  giving  new  life  to  every  member.     That 
Cowper   was   a    disciple   of   Jean- Jacques,   his   "  Tyro- 
cinium  "  shows  most  plainly,  of  course,  though  there  is 
plenty    of   evidence    in    "  The   Task."     On    Burns    the 
effect    was    produced,  indirectly,    through    the    general 
support  which  the  French  Revolution  gave  to  his  own 
manly  view  of  society.     Blake  was  immensely  excited 
by   the   Revolution;   the  whole  world,   visible  and   in- 
visible,   past,    present,    and    to    come,    good    and    evil, 
beautiful  and  hideous,  ideal  and  practical,  was  summed 
up,  to  him,  in  two  theodicies — the  first  as  recorded  in 
the   Bible,   the  second   as   thundered  forth  in   Revolu- 
tionary France. 

In  Wordsworth's  case,  writers  have  been  led  to  false 
conclusions  through  ignorance  of  exact  dates  and  facts 
in  his  life.  His  earliest  poetry  shows  not  the  faintest 
appreciation    of   what    Cowper    and    Burns    had    done. 


12  PERMANENCE  OF  WORDSWORTH     [chap,  i 

Nothing  could  be  less  original,  and  the  debt  is  due 
mainly  to  Thomson,  Collins,  Gray,  Cowley,  and  Denham. 
Then  came  his  actual  presence  in  France  in  1790,  and 
again  in  1 791-1793,  his  actual  study  of  Rousseau  and 
French  pamphleteers,  and  his  personal  acquaintance 
with  active  participants  in  the  Revolution.  At  once  his 
poetry  showed  the  effect  of  these  contacts. 

In  so  far  as  he  was  affected  by  the  example  of  Cowper 
or  of  Burns,  it  was  at  a  much  later  stage  of  his  develop- 
ment. His  initial  impulse  towards  simplicity  was 
political,  social,  and  moral,  not  literal .  It  was  only 
when  his  heart  had  been  profoundly  moved,  and  certain 
convictions,  having  no  necessary  or  at  least  no  imme- 
diate connection  with  poetry,  had  been  formed  within 
him,  that  his  style  and  method  of  writing  began  to 
change.  He  then  immediately  abandoned  the  standards 
which  he  had  unquestioningly  followed.  All  that  he 
wrote  before  1 792  is  conventional ;  all  that  he  wrote 
between  1792  and  1797  is  Revolutionary.  In  this 
second  period  he  worked  out  and  put  in  practice  a 
theory  of  composition,  which  he  thought  fitting  in  one 
who  had  determined  to  obey  the  command,  "  What  God 
hath  cleansed,  that  call  not  thou  common."  The 
attempt  was  heroic.  It  had  something  of  the  self- 
sacrificing  recklessness  of  a  forlorn  hope.  It  was  a 
gallant  forward  movement,  but  desperately  lonely,  and 
not  likely  to  succeed  unless  reinforced.  Coleridge 
V  brought  up  the  needed  support.  Falling  in  with 
Wordsworth's  advance,  he  strengthened  it  at  a  time 
when,  through  its  own  elan,  it  was  in  danger  of  wasting 
away.  He  added  those  elements  which  have  been 
termed  romantic,  and  interested  Wordsworth,  who 
till  then  was  a  severe  realist,  in  legends  of  the  wonderful. 
If  Wordsworth  could  ever  be  termed  a  Romanticist,  it 
was  during  the  last  three  years  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. Originally  and  characteristically  he  was  nothing 
of  the  sort.  WThen  he  was  most  himself,  he  found 
sufficient  inspiration  in  the  natural  world.  Roman- 
ticism looked  to  the  past,  to  the  supernatural,  to  the 
extraordinary.     Wordsworth,     the     true     Wordsworth, 


chap,  i]  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  13 

dwelt  in  the  present,  felt  that  nature  was  herself  divine, 
and  strove,  with  the  zeal  of  a  controversialist,  and  at 
considerable  risk,  to  show  that  the  ordinary  is  as  won- 
derful and  instructive  as  the  exceptional. 

It  is  in  this  sense  that  he  was  peculiarly  the  prophet 
of  an  age  of  science.  What  biologists  and  chemists 
have  done  to  reveal  the  wonders  of  the  physical  world. 
he  did,  in  a  measure,  for  the  relations  between  man's 
mind  and  the  objects  upon  which  the  mind  plays.  This 
vast  domain  of  perceptions  and  feelings  he  treated  with 
something  like  the  self-restraint,  respect,  and  fidelitv, 
with  which  men  of  science  investigate  the  material  uni- 
verse. Nothing,  he  thought,  was  unworthy  of  regard.  All 
things  were  so  interesting,  so  justified  in  their  existence 
and  special  working,  that  distinctions  of  high  and  low 
lost  much  of  their  meaning,  just  as  mountains  must 
appear  of  no  peculiar  significance  to  a  man  accustomed 
to  use  a  powerful  microscope.  This  state  of  mind  in 
Wordsworth  was  a  result  of  his  conversion  to  the  equali- 
tarian  creed  of  the  French  Revolution.  Some  sort  of 
faith  in  human  equality  was  the  religion  of  that  move- 
ment. Say  what  they  will,  neither  the  Carlyles  nor  the 
Taines  can  obscure  this  fact.  And  the  doctrine  being 
once  accepted,  it  affected  the  very  words  he  used. 

But,  after  all,  the  first  steps  in  his  new  spiritual  life 
merely  placed  him,  as  a  literary  artist,  on  a  plane  with 
many  older  English  poets,  who  wrote  in  a  natural 
manner  without  having  gone  through  a  religious  or 
political  experience  such  as  his.  There  have  alwavs 
been  in  English  poetry  two  manners  or  methods.  The 
one  is  natural,  simple,  free,  and  full  of  variety,  the  other 
artificial  and  much  restricted.  The  former  may  on  the 
whole  be  termed  native,  the  latter  exotic.  Chaucer 
wrote  in  both  manners;  so  did  Spenser,  Sidney,  Shake- 
speare, and  Jonson.  In  Shakespeare,  for  example,  we 
are  almost  in  doubt  which  to  admire  more — the  descrip- 
tion of  Cleopatra's  barge  or  the  scene  of  her  death,  the 
former  borrowed  from  Plutarch  and  enriched  with  rare 
jewels  of  speech,  the  latter  possessing  onlv  the  simple 
poignancy  that  might  befit  the  passing  of  a  beggar-girl 


14  PERMANENCE  OF  WORDSWORTH     [chap,  i 

no  less  than  of  a  queen.  More  extreme  cases  will  occur 
to  anyone.  The  preference  will,  in  our  time,  generally 
be  given  to  the  scenes  in  which  the  plainest  language  is 
used.  But  this  was  not  the  opinion  of  educated  per- 
sons in  the  seventeenth  and  early  eighteenth  centuries. 
And,  indeed,  the  academic  manner  easily  justified 
itself  when  applied  to  the  kinds  of  writing  which  re- 
quired considerable  education  and  social  training  in  its 
readers,  such  as  the  epigram,  the  epitaph,  the  ode,  and 
the  satire.  Even  for  lyrical,  descriptive,  and  narrative 
poetrjr,  it  seemed  appropriate  enough  when  Milton  used 
it ;  though  it  may  be  observed  that  his  adoption  of 
familiar  language  for  "  Samson  Agonistes  "  shows  that 
even  he  thought  the  academic  manner  unsuited  for 
tragedy.  How  completely  it  held  the  field  until  near 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  is  proved  not  only  by 
the  great  vogue  of  Waller,  Dryden,  and  Pope,  but  by 
the  immense  quantity  of  official  and  perfunctory  verse, 
all  in  this  manner,  by  educated  persons  who  were  not 
by  any  means  poets,  and  who  chose,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  the  fashionable  medium.  It  was  the  academic 
type  because  success  in  it — short  of  very  great  success — 
depended  not  upon  the  possession  of  genius — that  is  to 
say,  inborn  powers  of  eye  and  ear  and  mental  associa- 
tion— but  upon  talents  that  could  be  cultivated. 

In  a  vigorous  upper  rank,  in  which  it  was  fashionable 
to  send  boys  to  classical  schools,  there  was,  of  course,  a 
tradition  of  learning  and  good  taste,  which  could  not 
fail  to  give  point  and  elegance  to  verse  if  by  any  means 
the  writing  of  verse  became  a  favourite  accomplishment. 
And  though  inspiration  could  not  be  commanded,  wit, 
dignity,  and  grace,  with  no  small  amount  of  intellectual 
substance,  distinguished  even  the  second-rate  poetry 
of  the  age.  The  academic  type  could  not  continue  to 
prevail,  however,  for  poetic  genius  in  our  race  appears 
from  time  to  time  in  men  and  women  who  are  kept  free 
from  the  bondage  of  fashion  by  their  ignorance  or  their 
poverty  or  their  loftiness  of  character.  No  force  of 
literary  convention  could  smooth  out  the  peculiarities 
of  Donne,  Herbert,  Crashaw,  Vaughan,  or  Smart.     In 


chap  r]  THE  SOCIAL  FRAME  1 5 

truth,  the  older  and  stronger  tradition  was  in  the  keep- 
ing of  these  eccentrics ;  and  what  has  been  called  the 
New  Poetry  or  the  Romantic  Movement  was  to  a  large 
extent  the  reappearance  of  a  poetical  manner  that  had 
been  eclipsed  for  a  season,  its  characteristic  mark  being  a 
union  of  simple  realism  with  occasional  bursts  of  mystical 
strangeness.  It  admitted  no  limitations  of  diction  and 
subject-matter.  \ 

But  until  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  were  lifted  on 
the  ground-swell  of  the  Revolution,  they  were  satisfied 
with  the  fashion  that  prevailed  in  their  youth.  Their 
revolt  was  at  first  not  literary,  but  political.  Words- 
worth, for  example,  continued  to  write  in  the  academic 
manner  when  composing  even  those  passages  of  "  De- 
scriptive Sketches,"  in  1792,  which  proclaimed  his 
republican  principles  so  vehemently  that  he  afterwards 
felt  constrained  to  suppress  and  alter  them.  However, 
since  he  respected  his  own  genius,  he  was  not  long  in 
changing  his  style  to  match  his  opinions. 

Too  much  emphasis  can  hardly  be  laid  upon  the 
statement  that  Wordsworth  at  his  best,  in  his  great 
years,  when  he  was  most  truly  himself,  when  he  was 
animated  by  courage  and  hope,  was  a  fervent  Revolu- 
tionist. His  words  were  acts.  His  decisions,  even  in 
so  quiet  an  affair  as  the  choice  of  subjects  and  words  for 
pastoral  poems,  were  based  on  principles  of  the  widest 
scope,  and  were  in  truth  momentous,  as  he  supposed. 
He  breathed,  with  joy  and  awe,  the  spirit  of  a  glorious 
time.  And  the  time  found  in  him  its  most  faithful  and 
inspired  interpreter.  He  alone,  of  all  who  have  ex- 
perienced, or  contemplated  the  Revolution,  has  left  an 
adequate  artistic  record  of  its  effect  upon  the  spiritual 
life  of  those  who  welcomed  it  and  those  who  opposed  it. 

The  circumstances  of  his  birth  and  early  life  had  pre- 
pared him  to  embrace  the  Revolutionary  doctrines  and 
to  fill  worthily  the  office  to  which  this  acceptance  com- 
mitted him.  It  is  probable  that  even  the  most  reac- 
tionary man  now  living  would  be  shocked,  if  he  were  to 
awake  some  morning  in  the  last  decade  of  the  eighteenth 
century  in  England,  by  the  oppressiveness  of  the  social 


16  PERMANENCE  OF  WORDSWORTH     [chap,  t 

atmosphere.     The  law  favoured  the  owners  of  property, 
particularly  landed  property.     It  was  still  barbarously 
severe.     The  debtor,  the  poacher,  the  seditious  person, 
were  punished  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  offences, 
while  political  corruption  and  vice  in  the  upper  classes 
were  winked   at.     Not   only  was   there  no   systematic 
provision  for  enabling  the  poor  to  get  even  an  elementary 
education,  but  the  very  idea  of  their  desiring  an  educa- 
tion  was   considered    dangerous.     Dissenters   were   ex- 
cluded from  the  universities,  and  their  participation  in 
politics    was    restricted.     Advancement    for    officers    in 
the  army  and  navy  was  purchasable,  while  the  press-gang 
might  at  any  moment  snatch  a  poor  man  from  his  family 
and  condemn  him  to  the  bitter  lot  of  a  common  soldier 
or   sailor.     There   was    almost    as    much    reason    for    a 
revolt    in    England     as    in   pre-Revolutionary    France. 
Wordsworth's  boyhood  was  passed  in  a  pleasant  nook 
of  English  ground,  where  the  contrast  between  the  privi- 
leged classes  and  the  body  of  the  oppressed  was  not  so 
violent  as  elsewhere.     When  he  left  it  he  was  struck  by 
the  unhappy  condition  of  his  country.     After  his  visit 
to   France  he  found   England  still  half  choked,  as  he 
thought,   with   noxious   fumes.     He  had   breathed   the 
exhilarating   air   of   a   country   that   had   roused   itself 
from   even   deadlier  slumber.     He   came  home  with   a 
new  consciousness,  a  new  outlook,  and  new  aspirations. 
The  contrast  between  what  was  and  what  he  believed 
might   be  was  presently  deepened  by  the  poverty  and 
unrest  occasioned  by  prolonged  war.     He  himself,  in  the 
vicissitudes  of   his  own  life,  was  affected  by  both  ex- 
tremes   of    social    difference.     His    family    name    and 
university   education    brought    him   into    contact   with 
persons  of  wealth  and  power,  but  the  background  of  his 
memory  was  already  filled  with  homely  figures  of  poor, 
uneducated   people,  and   his   associations  in   the  years 
before   he   became   well    known    covered    an    unusually 
wide  range  in  the  social  scale.     He  had   to  endure  a 
certain  share  of  prejudice,  social  as  well  as  literary,  and 
a  certain  amount  of  legal  injustice,  and  he  lived  for  some 
years  on  the  verge  of  poverty.     The  sympathy  which  he 


chap,  i]  TITLES  TO  HONOUR  17 

felt  for  those  whose  lot  was  different  from  his  own  was 
not  purely  imaginative,  but  was  based  on  much  real  ex- 
perience. A  sense  of  social  responsibility  lay  heavy  > 
upon  him.  He  was  never  for  a  long  time  solitary, 
never  contented  with  a  make-believe  world  or  a  world 
of  books. 

His  excellence  as  an  artist,  the  special  work  he  per- 
formed in  renovating  the  spirit  and  the  style  of  English 
poetry,  and  his  pre-eminent  position  as  interpreter  of  the 
Revolution,  assure  for  Wordsworth  an  enduring  place 
among  the  greatest  of  our  poets.  He  acknowledged 
Milton  as  his  master.  That  he  equalled  or  perhaps 
surpassed  Milton  in  the  quality  and  variety  of  his  best 
achievements  may  be  the  opinion  of  Wordsworthians, 
though  it  is  hardly  the  judgment  of  mankind.  But 
more  and  more  the  conviction  is  growing  that  he  is  the 
greatest  of  our  poets  since  Milton.  There  is  still  another 
ground  on  which  he  is  venerated.  This  is  the  belief 
that,  more  than  any  other  eminent  poet,  in  any  lan- 
guage, he  reveals  a  mystical  relation  between  nature 
and  the  mind  of  man.  It  is  quite  possible  that  some  of 
his  admirers  exaggerate  the  value  of  this  revelation; 
but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  endeavoured,  with 
courage  and  originality,  and  from  deep  conviction,  to 
establish  as  a  religious  principle  what  to  all  genuine 
poets  is  at  least  a  sacred  instinct. 


1. 


CHAPTER  II 

ORIGINS  AND  CHILDHOOD 

The  character  and  career  of  the  poet  Wordsworth  sug- 
gest that  he  was  of  pure  race  long  attached  to  one 
localit}'  and  fairly  constant  in  a  middle  situation  of  life. 
His  knowledge  and  love  of  the  corner  of  the  world 
where  he  was  born  were  like  hereditary  instincts.  They 
could  scarcely  have  been  derived  from  the  experiences 
of  a  single  lifetime.  And  he  found  ready  access,  by 
innate  sympathy,  to  the  emotional  range  of  the  humble 
and  uneducated,  no  less  than  to  that  of  the  most  privi- 
leged persons  or  the  most  extraordinary.  In  a  short  auto- 
biographical sketch  which  he  dictated  in  1847,  ne  says: 

"  I  was  born  at  Cockermouth,  in  Cumberland,  on 
April  7,  1770,  the  second  son  of  John  Wordsworth, 
attorney-at-law,  as  lawyers  of  this  class  were  then 
called,  and  law-agent  to  Sir  James  Lowther,  afterwards 
Earl  of  Lonsdale.  My  mother  was  Anne,  only  daughter 
of  William  Cookson,  mercer,  of  Penrith,  and  of  Dorothy, 
born  Crackanthorp,  of  the  ancient  family  of  that  name, 
who  from  the  times  of  Edward  III.  had  lived  in  New- 
biggen  Hall,  Westmoreland.  My  grandfather  was  the 
first  of  the  name  of  Wordsworth  who  came  into  West- 
moreland, where  he  purchased  the  small  estate  of  Sock- 
bridge.  He  was  descended  from  a  family  who  had  been 
settled  at  Peniston  in  Yorkshire,  near  the  sources  of  the 
Don,  probably  before  the  Norman  Conquest.  Their 
names  appear  on  different  occasions  in  all  the  trans- 
actions, personal  and  public,  connected  with  that 
parish;  and  I  possess,  through  the  kindness  of  Colonel 
Beaumont,  an  almery  made  in  1525,  at  the  expense  of  a 
William  Wordsworth,  as  is  expressed  in  a  Latin  inscrip- 
tion carved  upon  it,  which  carries  the  pedigree  of  the 
family  back  four  generations  from  himself." 

18 


1770-1778]  PARENTAGE  19 

Cockermouth  is  twenty-five  miles  west  of  Penrith. 
From  both  towns  may  be  seen  to  the  south  the  blue 
peaks  of  the  Cumbrian  Mountains,  from  whose  farther 
skirts  Penistone  is  but  seventy  miles  distant.  Within 
this  small  compass  all  the  known  ancestors  of  the  poet 
spent  their  days,  in  farming,  business,  and  professional 
life.  Richard  Wordsworth,  his  grandfather,  married 
Mary,  daughter  of  John  Robinson,  of  Appleby,  a  village 
twelve  miles  south-east  of  Penrith.*  Closer  still  to 
Penrith  were  the  properties  of  Sockbridge  and  New- 
biggin  Hall.  Richard  Wordsworth  is  the  first  of  the  line 
of  whom  we  possess  extended  information,  although  the 
name  has  been  traced  back  to  the  middle  of  the  six- 
teenth century  in  the  parish  of  Silkston  in  Yorkshire. 
He  came  into  Westmorland  early  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, became  superintendent  of  the  Lowther  estates, 
and  was  Receiver-General  of  the  county  at  the  time  of 
the  rising  in  1745.  He  died  about  1762.!  His  second 
son,  John,  the  poet's  father,  born  in  1741,  became  chief 
law  agent  of  Sir  James  Lowther  and  steward  of  the 
manor  and  forest  of  Ennerdale.  He  married  in  1766, 
and  died  in  1783.  His  wife,  the  daughter  of  a  well-to-do 
shopkeeper,  was  born  in  1747.  They  had  five  children: 
Richard,  born  August  19,  1768;  William,  born  April  7, 
1770;  Dorothy,  born  December  25,   1771;   John,  born 

*  In  a  pamphlet  by  the  genealogist  H.  J.  Hunter,  entitled  "  Old  Age 
in  Bath,"  of  which  a  copy  is  preserved  in  the  British  Museum,  there  is  a 
letter  from  the  poet  dated  October  31,  1831,  in  which  he  says:  "  My  grand- 
father, Richard  Wordsworth,  married  a  Miss  Robinson  of  Appleby,  aunt 
to  the  famous  Jack  Robinson,  who  represented  the  county  of  Westmor- 
land, was  Colonel  in  the  Westmorland  Militia,  and,  having  borne  an  active 
part  in  Lord  North's  Administration,  died  Surveyor  of  the  Woods  and 
Forests.  This  family  was  originally  called  Robertson,  of  Struan,  Perth- 
shire, and  if  John  Robinson  had  had  a  son,  he  himself  would  have  taken 
the  title  of  Lord  Struan.  His  only  daughter  married  the  present  Earl  of 
Abergavenny,  who  was  then  a  Baron,  and,  as  I  have  been  told,  probably 
owed  his  elevation  in  the  Peerage  (great  as  his  family  was)  to  his  father- 
in-law.    The  Robinsons  came  into  Westmorland  in  the  time  of  Henry  VIII." 

There  is  a  very  full  Wordsworth  genealogy  in  Howard's  "  Miscellanea 
Genealogica,"  New  Series,  vol.  iv. 

f  A  writer  in  The  Athencnum ,  for  May  30,  1896,  says  that  a  copy  of 
Daniel's  "  Poetical  Works,"  1718,  contains  a  note  in  the  handwriting  of 
the  poet's  grandfather.  Daniel  was  one  of  Wordsworth's  favourite 
authors. 


20  ORIGINS  AND  CHILDHOOD  [chap,  it 

December  4,  1772;  and  Christopher,  born  June  9,  1774. 
The  most  closely  written  passage  in  the  little  sketch  of 
his  life,  dictated  by  the  aged  poet,  is  the  one  in  which 
he  endeavoured  to  compel  his  memory  to  give  up  all  it 
contained  about  his  mother: 

"  The  time  of  my  infancy  and  early  boyhood  was 
passed  partly  at  Cockermouth,  and  partly  with  my 
mother's  parents  at  Penrith,  where  my  mother,  in  the 
year  1778,  died  of  a  decline,  brought  on  by  a  cold,  the 
consequence  of  being  put,  at  a  friend's  house  in  London, 
in  what  used  to  be  called  '  a  best  bedroom.'  My  father 
never  recovered  his  usual  cheerfulness  of  mind  after 
this  loss,  and  died  when  I  was  in  my  fourteenth  year,  a 
schoolboy  just  returned  from  Hawkshead,  whither  I 
had  been  sent  with  my  elder  brother  Richard,  in  my 
ninth  year.  I  remember  my  mother  only  in  some  few 
situations,  one  of  which  was  her  pinning  a  nosegay  to 
my  breast  when  I  was  going  to  say  the  catechism  in  the 
church,  as  was  customary  before  Easter." 

This  recollection,  fragrant  indeed,  he  has  recorded  in 
verse : 

How  fluttered  then  thy  anxious  heart  for  me, 
Beloved  Mother  !  Thou  whose  happy  hand 
Had  bound  the  flowers  I  wore,  with  faithful  tie: 
Sweet  flowers  !  at  whose  inaudible  command 
Her  countenance,  phantom-like,  doth  reappear: 
O  lost  too  early  for  the  frequent  tear, 
And  ill-requited  by  this  heartfelt  sigh  ! 

"  1  remember  also,"  he  continues,  "  telling  her  on 
one  week-day  that  I  had  been  at  church,  for  our  school 
stood  in  a  churchyard,  and  we  had  frequent  oppor- 
tunities of  seeing  what  was  going  on  there.  The  occa- 
sion was,  a  woman  doing  penance  in  the  church  in  a 
white  sheet.  My  mother  commended  my  having  been 
present,  expressing  a  hope  that  I  should  remember  the 
circumstance  for  the  rest  of  my  life.  '  But,'  said  I, 
'  Mama,  they  did  not  give  me  a  penny,  as  I  had  been  told 
they  would.  '  Oh,'  said  she,  recanting  her  praises, '  if  that 
was  your  motive,  you  were  very  properly  disappointed.' 

"  My  last  impression  was  having  a  glimpse  of  her  on 
passing  the  door  of  her  bedroom  during  her  last  illness, 
when  she  was  reclining  in  her  easy  chair.  An  intimate 
friend  of  hers,  Miss  Hamilton  by  name,  who  was  used 
to  visit  her  at  Cockermouth,  told  me  that  she  once  said 


1770-1778]    STIFFNESS  OF  DISPOSITION  21 

to  her,  that  the  only  one  of  her  five  children  about  whose 
future  life  she  was  anxious,  was  William;  and  he,  she 
said,  would  be  remarkable  either  for  good  or  for  evil. 
The  cause  of  this  was,  that  I  was  of  a  stiff,  mood}^  and 
violent  temper;  so  much  so  that  I  remember  going  once 
into  the  attics  of  my  grandfather's  house  at  Penrith, 
upon  some  indignity  having  been  put  upon  me,  with  an 
intention  of  destroying  myself  with  one  of  the  foils  e 
which  I  knew  was  kept  there.  I  took  the  foil  in  hand, 
but  my  heart  failed.  Upon  another  occasion,  while  I 
was  at  my  grandfather's  house  at  Penrith,  along  with 
my  eldest  brother,  Richard,  we  were  whipping  tops 
together  in  the  large  drawing-room,  on  which  the  carpet 
was  only  laid  down  upon  particular  occasions.  The 
walls  were  hung  round  with  family  pictures,  and  I  said 
to  my  brother,  '  Dare  you  strike  your  whip  through 
that  old  lady's  petticoat?'  He  replied,  '  No,  I  won't.' 
'  Then,'  said  I, '  here  goes;'  and  I  struck  my  lash  through 
her  hooped  petticoat,  for  which,  no  doubt,  though  I 
have  forgotten  it,  I  was  properly  punished.  But  pos- 
sibly from  some  want  of  judgment  in  punishments  in- 
flicted, I  had  become  perverse  and  obstinate  in  defying 
chastisement,  and  rather  proud  of  it  than  otherwise." 

He  carried  the  same  toughness  of  resolution  through 
life,  bearing  himself  high  in  all  affairs  and  seldom  taking 
counsel  of  other  men.  Strangely  enough,  however,  he 
came  through  the  period  of  boyhood  and  youth  without 
suffering  any  serious  trouble  that  can  be  attributed  to 
this  quality.  The  hard  strain  was  tempered  by  a 
gentleness  equally  characteristic.  Though  naturally  in- 
clined to  be  severe  in  his  judgments,  he  was  too  close 
and  sympathetic  an  observer  not  to  see  the  good  in  his 
playmates  and  companions.  Moreover,  having  brothers 
near  his  own  age,  and  being  often  sent  to  live  under  the 
rigorous  discipline  of  his  relatives  at  Penrith,  he  early 
learned  to  accommodate  himself  to  the  will  of  those  to 
whom  he  owed  obligation. 

Although  John  Wordsworth  was  a  prosperous  man 
of  business,  and  occupied  one  of  the  most  imposing 
houses  in  the  busy  town  of  Cockermouth,  the  family  no 
doubt  lived  plainly.  There  were  no  overshadowing 
great  families  to  take  the  colour  out  of  life,  nor  had  the 
place  been  disfigured  by  industry.     It  was  then,  as  it 


22  ORIGINS  AND  CHILDHOOD  [chap,  n 

remains  now,  a  centre  for  the  sheep  and  wool  trade. 
The  Wordsworth  house,  a  long  brick  mansion,  with  its 
face  to  the  main  street,  and  its  back  towards  the  river 
and  the  ruined  castle,  is  still  one  of  the  largest  in  the 
town.  The  children  were  left  much  to  themselves,  and 
roamed  freely  in  a  little  world  abounding  in  natural 
pleasures  and  fair  humanities.  In  a  crisis  of  his  life, 
when  he  feared  lest,  like  a  false  steward,  he  might  render 
no  sufficient  return  to  the  world  for  the  advantages  he 
had  enjoyed,  the  poet  wrote:* 

Was  it  for  this 
That  one,  the  fairest  of  all  rivers,  loved 
To  blend  his  murmurs  with  my  nurse's  song, 
And,  from  his  alder  shades  and  rocky  falls, 
And  from  his  fords  and  shallows,  sent  a  voice 
That  flowed  along  my  dreams  ?     For  this,  didst  thou, 
O  Derwent  !  winding  among  grassy  holms 
Where  I  was  looking  on,  a  babe  in  arms, 
Make  ceaseless  music  that  composed  my  thoughts 
To  more  than  infant  softness,  giving  me 
Amid  the  fretful  dwellings  of  mankind 
A  foretaste,  a  dim  earnest,  of  the  calm 
That  Nature  breathes  among  the  hills  and  groves. 

Then,  referring  to  the  ruins  of  Cockermouth  Castle 
and  to  the  garden  behind  his  father's  house,  which  ran 
down  to  the  river  and  looked  across  it  to  the  open 
country,  he  continues: 

When  he  had  left  the  mountains  and  received 
On  his  smooth  breast  the  shadow  of  those  towers 
That  yet  survive,  a  shattered  monument 
Of  feudal  sway,  the  bright  blue  river  passed 
Along  the  margin  of  our  terrace  walk; 
A  tempting  playmate  whom  we  dearly  loved. 
Oh,  many  a  time  have  I,  a  five  years'  child, 
In  a  small  mill-race  severed  from  his  stream, 
Made  one  long  bathing  of  a  summer's  day; 
Basked  in  the  sun,  and  plunged  and  basked  again 
Alternate,  all  a  summer's  day,  or  scoured 
The  sandy  fields,  leaping  through  flowery  groves 
Of  yellow  ragwort;  or  when  rock  and  hill, 
The  woods,  and  distant  Skiddaw's  lofty  height, 
Were  bronzed  with  deepest  radiance,  stood  alone 

*  "  Prelude,"  I.  269. 


1770-1778,    FREEDOM  IN  EARLY  YEARS  23 

Beneath  the  sky,  as  if  I  had  been  born 
On  Indian  plains,  and  from  my  mother's  hut 
Had  run  abroad  in  wantoness,  to  sport, 
A  naked  savage,  in  the  thunder  shower. 

Fair  seed-time  had  my  soul,  and  I  grew  up 
Fostered  alike  by  beauty  and  by  fear: 
Much  favoured  in  my  birthplace. 

In  the  "  Address  from  the  Spirit  of  Cockermouth 
Castle,"  a  sonnet  composed  in  his  old  age,  he  recalls 
hours  of  play  in  the  dungeon  and  grassy  courts  of  this 
ancient  pile.  Even  before  his  mother's  death  he  was 
much  with  her  relatives  at  Penrith,  where  he  attended 
a  mixed  school  taught  by  Mrs.  Anne  Birkett.  His 
future  wife,  Mary  Hutchinson,  daughter  of  John  and  e 
Mary  Hutchinson,  of  Penrith,  was  one  of  his  schoolmates. 
At  Cockermouth  he  had  some  instruction  from  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Gilbanks,  and  began  the  study  of  Latin. 

In  the  fifth  book  of  "  The  Prelude  "  he  contrasts  the  4*'M 
freedom  of  his  early  years  with  the  close  guidance  en- 
joined by  Rousseau,  and  illustrated  in  Thomas  Day's 
"  Sandford  and  Merton."  He  expressed  his  gratitude 
for  his  mother's  wisdom  in  permitting  his  instincts  to 
unfold  themselves  without  irreverent  and  fretful  med- 
dling. In  the  large  quiet  of  her  simple  nature  he  enjoyed 
the  immunities  of  childhood,  its  indifference  to  the 
future,  its  absorption  in  the  present,  its  long  spaces  of 
happy  solitude.  The  passage  is  of  considerable  bio- 
graphical interest,  especially  in  view  of  the  unique 
importance    of    childhood    instincts    in    Wordsworth's 

philosophy  :* 

Early  died 
My  honoured  Mother,  she  who  was  the  heart 
And  hinge  of  all  our  learnings  and  our  loves: 
She  left  us  destitute,  and,  as  we  might, 
Trooping  together.     Little  suits  it  me 
To  break  upon  the  sabbath  of  her  rest 
With  any  thought  that  looks  at  others'  blame; 
Nor  would  I  praise  her  but  in  perfect  love. 
Hence  am  I  checked :  but  let  me  boldly  say. 
In  gratitude,  and  for  the  sake  of  truth, 
Unheard  bv  her,  that  she,  not  falsely  taught, 
Fetching  her  goodness  rather  from  times  past, 

*   "  Prelude,"  V.  256. 


24  ORIGINS  AND  CHILDHOOD  [chap,  n 

Than  shaping  novelties  for  times  to  come, 

Had  no  presumption,  no  such  jealousy, 

Nor  did  by  habit  of  her  thoughts  mistrust 

Our  nature,  but  had  virtual  faith  that  He 

Who  fills  the  mother's  breast  with  innocent  milk, 

Doth  also  for  our  nobler  part  provide, 

Under  His  great  correction  and  control, 

As  innocent  instincts,  and  as  innocent  food; 

Or  draws  for  minds  that  are  left  free  to  trust 

In  the  simplicities  of  opening  life 

Sweet  honey  out  of  spurned  or  dreaded  weeds. 

Thi6  was  her  creed,  and  therefore  she  was  pure 

From  anxious  fear  of  error  or  mishap, 

And  evil,  overweeningly  so  called; 

Was  not  puffed  up  by  false  unnatural  hopes, 

Nor  selfish  with  unnecessary  cares, 

Nor  with  impatience  from  the  season  asked 

More  than  its  timely  produce;  rather  loved 

The  hours  for  what  they  are,  than  from  regard 

Glanced  on  their  promises  in  restless  pride. 

Such  was  she — not  from  faculties  more  strong 

Than  others  have,  but  from  the  times,  perhaps, 

And  spot  in  which  she  lived,  and  through  a  grace 

Of  modest  meekness,  simple-mindedness, 

A  heart  that  found  benignity  and  hope, 

Being  itself  benign. 

According  to  his  nephew  and  biographer,  the  Bishop 
of  Lincoln,  "  The  poet's  father  set  him  very  early  to 
learn  portions  of  the  works  of  the  best  English  poets  by 
heart,  so  that  at  an  early  age  he  could  repeat  large 
portions  of  Shakespeare,  Milton,  and  Spenser."  This 
training  contributed  to  develop,  if  it  did  not  create,  an 
extraordinary  capacity  and  retentiveness  of  memory, 
besides  a  power,  probably  unmatched  in  modern  times, 
of  composing  many  lines  of  poetry  without  the  employ- 
ment of  writing,  a  power  the  more  fortunate  because  he 
was  afflicted  with  a  nervous  disorder  which  made  the  use 
of  the  pen  very  irksome.  And  since  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  qualities  of  his  work  is  the  way  in  which 
perfect  naturalness  and  simplicity  are  united  with  the 
most  refined  artifice  and  with  literary  culture,  it  is 
interesting  to  know  that  some  of  the  poetical  remin- 
iscences that  echo  through  his  verse  date  from  his 
earliest   childhood.     There   are   passages   in   his   poems 


1 770-1778]  DOROTHY  25 

that  remind  one  of  Milton  especially,  or  make  one  feel 
the  very  breath  of  Spenser  or  Shakespeare,  yet  without 
definite  resemblance.  It  is  as  if  lifelong  converse  with 
the  elder  poets  had  given  him,  upon  occasion,  their 
mode  of  thought,  and,  above  all,  their  melodies. 

It  is  probable,  from  their  nearness  of  age  and 
similarity  of  disposition,  that  even  in  these  earliest 
days  of  childhood  William's  favourite  companion  was 
his  sister  Dorothy.  An  anecdote  relating  to  their 
life  at  that  time  concerns  her.  Speaking  of  the  sea- 
shore near  Cockermouth,  the  poet  in  his  extreme  old 
age  said  : 

"  With  this  coast  I  have  been  familiar  from  my 
earliest  childhood,  and  I  remember  being  struck  for  the 
first  time  by  the  town  and  port  of  Whitehaven,  and  the 
white  waves  breaking  against  its  quays  and  piers  as  the 
whole  came  into  view  from  the  top  of  the  high  ground 
down  which  the  road  (it  has  since  been  altered)  then 
descended  abruptly.  My  sister,  when  she  first  heard  the 
voice  of  the  sea  from  this  point,  and  beheld  the  scene 
spread  before  her,  burst  into  tears.  Our  family  then 
lived  at  Cockermouth,  and  this  fact  was  often  mentioned 
among  us  as  indicating  the  sensibility  for  which  she  was 
so  remarkable." 

In  1 80 1,  when  he  and  his  sister  had  settled  at  Town- 
end,  Grasmere,  he  wrote  the  following  poem  in  the 
orchard  there : 

Behold,  within  the  leafy  shade, 
Those  bright  blue  eggs  together  laid  ! 
On  me  trie  chance-discovered  sight 
Gleamed  like  a  vision  of  delight. 
I  started  seeming  to  espy 
The  home  and  sheltered  bed, 
The  sparrow's  dwelling,  which,  hard  by 
My  Father's  house,  in  wet  or  dry 
My  sister  Emmeline  and  I 
Together  visited. 

She  looked  at  it  and  seemed  to  fear  it; 
Dreading,  tho'  wishing,  to  be  near  it: 
Such  heart  was  in  her,  being  then 
A  little  Prattler  among  men. 


26  ORIGINS  AND  CHILDHOOD  [chap,  n 

The  Blessing  of  my  later  years 
Was  with  me  when  a  boy: 
She  gave  me  eyes,  she  gave  me  ears; 
And  humble  cares,  and  delicate  fears; 
A  heart,  the  fountain  of  sweet  tears  ; 
And  love,  and  thought,  and  joy. 

The  manuscript  sent  originally  to  the  printer  had  the 
name  "  Dorothy  "  for  "  Emmeline."  In  a  note  to  this 
poem,  dictated  to  Miss  Fen  wick,  in  1843,  the  poet  said: 

"  At  the  end  of  the  garden  of  my  father's  house  at 
Cockermouth  was  a  high  terrace  that  commanded  a  fine 
view  of  the  river  Derwent  and  Cockermouth  Castle. 
This  was  our  favourite  playground.  The  terrace  wall, 
a  low  one,  was  covered  with  closely-clipt  privet  and 
roses,  which  gave  an  almost  impervious  shelter  to  birds 
who  built  their  nests  there.  The  latter  of  these  stanzas 
alludes  to  one  of  those  nests." 

Once  again,  in  the  peace  of  those  first  months  with  his 
sister  at  Grasmere,  he  wrote  a  poem  reminiscent  of  their 
early  childhood,  the  lines  "  To  a  Butterfly  ": 

Stay  near  me — do  not  take  thy  flight  ! 

A  little  longer  stay  in  sight  ! 

Much  converse  do  I  find  in  thee, 

Historian  of  my  infancy  ! 

Float  near  me;  do  not  yet  depart  ! 

Dead  times  revive  in  thee : 

Thou  bring'st,  gay  creature  as  thou  art ! 

A  solemn  image  to  my  heart, 

My  father's  family  ! 

Oh  !  pleasant,  pleasant  were  the  days. 
The  time,  when  in  our  childish  plays, 
My  sister  Emmeline  and  I 
Together  chased  the  butterfly  ! 
A  very  hunter  did  I  rush 
Upon  the  prey ; — with  leaps  and  springs 
I  followed  on  from  brake  to  bush ; 
But  she,  God  love  her  !  feared  to  brush 
The  dust  from  off  its  wings. 

In  her  Grasmere  Journal,  under  date  of  March  14,  1 802, 
Dorothy  records  the  composition  of  this  poem,  and  says  : 

"  The  thought  first  came  upon  him  as  we  were  talking 
about  the  pleasure  we  both  always  felt  at  the  sight  of  a 


1770-1778]  HIS  MOTHER'S  DEATH  27 

butterfly.  I  told  him  that  I  used  to  chase  them  a  little, 
but  that  I  was  afraid  of  brushing  the  dust  off  their 
wings,  and  did  not  catch  them.  He  told  me  how  he 
used  to  kill  all  the  white  ones  when  he  went  to  school, 
because  they  were  Frenchmen." 

The  superiority  of  Wordsworth  was  inborn.  A  con- 
genital gift  of  intelligence  and  susceptibility  was  shared 
between  him  and  his  sister,  while  his  brother  John 
possessed  a  rare  appreciation  of  poetry,  and  his  brother 
Christopher,  who  became  Master  of  Trinity  College, 
Cambridge,  was  endowed  with  eminent  strength  of 
mind.  A  spirit  of  light  must  therefore  have  dwelt  in 
the  rather  severe  brick  house  at  Cockermouth,  where 
this  extraordinary  brood  came  into  existence.  Both 
parents  happily  rejected  the  temptation  to  warp  the 
well-born  natures,  of  whose  fine  quality  they  must  have 
been  aware.  Long  visits  to  their  mother's  old  home 
at  Penrith  and  occasional  trips  to  the  seashore  appear 
to  have  been  the  onlj7  variations  in  the  placid  lives  of 
the  children. 

In  the  twelfth  book  of  "  The  Prelude,"  the  poet 
summons  up,  in  minute  detail,  another  episode  of  his 
early  childhood,  which  occurred  near  Penrith.  He  was 
riding,  while  yet  "  his  inexperienced  hand  could  scarcely 
hold  a  bridle  ";  and  having  become  separated  from  the 
servant  who  accompanied  him,  he  was  leading  his  horse, 
when  he  came  upon  the  remains  of  a  gibbet  and  the 
name  of  a  murderer  marked  in  the  turf  at  its  foot.  "  A 
spirit  of  pleasure  and  youth's  golden  gleam  "  made  even 
this  lugubrious  event  one  of  his  mind's  treasures. 

Mrs.  Wordsworth  died  in  March,  1778,  and  was  buried 
at  Penrith.  Then  began  the  dispersal,  to  which  Dorothy 
in  her  letters  ruefully  refers,  using  more  than  once  the 
expression,  "  How  we  are  squandered  abroad  1"  She 
was  sent  to  live  with  her  grandmother  Cookson  at 
Penrith,  and  Richard  and  William  were  sent  to  school 
at  Hawkshead.  For  Dorothy  this  was  the  beginning  of 
a  long  period  of  lonely  suffering  and  spiritual  homeless- 
ness.  For  WTilliam  it  was  an  auspicious  turning-point, 
from  which  we  ma)-  date  one  of  the  happiest  and  most 


28  ORIGINS  AND  CHILDHOOD  [chap,  u 

receptive  portions  of  his  life.  From  his  ninth  to  his 
eighteenth  year  Hawkshead  was  virtually  his  home. 
His  younger  brothers,  John  and  Christopher,  joined 
him  there  in  due  season ;  and  although  there  must  have 
been  many  reunions  at  Cockermouth,  few  traces  of  them 
remain.  The  poet  relates,  in  the  twelfth  book  of  "  The 
Prelude,"  that  one  Christmas-time  he  climbed  to  the 
top  of  a  crag  and  "  sate  half-sheltered  by  a  naked  wall," 
watching  through  the  mist  for  the  led  palfreys  that  should 
bear  him  home,  his  brothers  and  himself;  and  ever  after- 
wards he  could  remember 

the  wind  and  sleety  rain, 
And  all  the  business  of  the  elements, 
The  single  sheep,  and  the  one  blasted  tree, 
And  the  bleak  music  from  that  old  stone  wall. 

He  tells  of  flinging  himself,  in  his  holidays  at  his 
father's  house,  upon  the  books  he  found  there,  and  of 
spoiling  a  good  day's  fishing  in  the  Derwent  by  lying 
on  the  hot  stones  in  the  glaring  sun,  reading  with 
desperate  haste,  when  he  should  have  been  minding  his 
rod  and  line. 

His  father  died  December  30,  1783,  in  consequence  of 
a  cold  caught  while  riding  over  the  mountains  on  busi- 
ness. The  family  estate  consisted  chiefly  of  claims, 
amounting  to  about  £4,700,  on  Sir  James  Lowther, 
afterwards  Earl  of  Lonsdale,  whose  legal  agent  John 
Wordsworth  had  been.  It  appears  that  the  earl  had 
withheld  money  due  to  his  agent,  and  even  forced  from 
him  considerable  loans.  He  held  himself  superior  to 
the  law,  and  when  subsequently  the  case  came  up  for 
trial,  he  retained  all  the  best  counsel,  and  succeeded  in 
thwarting  justice  during  the  rest  of  his  life.  Meanwhile, 
for  nineteen  years,  the  Wordsworth  children  lived  on 
prospects,  which  would  not  have  carried  them  far  had 
not  their  relatives  come  to  their  assistance.  The  chil- 
dren were  put  in  charge  of  their  father's  brother  Richard 
and  their  mother's  uncle  Christopher  Crackanthorpe 
Cookson.  Upon  the  earl's  death,  in  1802,  their  property 
was  paid  to  them  with  interest  by  his  successor. 

The  village  of  Hawkshead  is  little  changed  from  what 


1778-1787]  HAWKSHEAD  29 

it  was  in  1778.     It  lies  in  the  shallow  vale  of  Esthwaite, 
near  the  head   of  Esthwaite  Water,  a  lake  about  two 
miles  long,  between  and  almost  equally  distant  from  the 
larger  lakes  of  Windermere  and  Coniston.     The  valley 
is  sprinkled  with  small  farms,  and  its  higher  grounds 
are  wooded  with  beech  and  oak  and  fir.     The  little  town 
is  of  great  antiquity,  and  has  long  held  the  distinction  of 
being  a  market  for  the  wool  grown  in  the  surrounding 
country.     It    is    situated    near    the    extreme    northern 
angle  of  Lancashire,  which  is  wedged  between  Cumber- 
land on  the  west  and  Westmorland  on  the  east.     Its 
houses,  of  grey  stone,  with  thick  slabbed  roofs,  stand  in 
a    charmingly    haphazard    way    around    several _  open 
spaces  of  irregular  shape,  called  squares.     There  are  no 
mansions    here,    and    no    hovels.     The    dwellings    bear 
witness  to  that  equality  and  that  general  diffusion  of 
humble  comfort  which  were  formerly  even  more  charac- 
teristic of  the   Lake  country   than   they  are   now.      A 
mountain  brook  flows  through  a  buried  conduit  under 
one  of  the  streets.     It  once  was  only  half  hidden  by 
flagstones,  and  was  an  object  of  interest  to  children. 
On  a  hill  that  rises  abruptly  from  one  side  of  the  village 
stands  a  noble  Gothic  church,  of  considerable  antiquity. 
Its  long  grey  mass  can  scarcely  be  distinguished  at  a 
distance  from  the  rock  on  which  it  rests,  so  naturally, 
as  regards  colour  and  form,  does  it  harmonize  with  its 
surroundings.     The  turf  of  the  churchyard  creeps  up  to 
the  very  doors,  and  the  black  foliage  of  immemorial  yew- 
trees  masks  the  gravestones  of  many  generations,  re- 
moved only  a  few  paces  from  the  scene  of  their  activity. 
That    a    community    so    undistinguished    by    wealthy 
families  could  erect  this  relatively  vast  edifice  must  have 
impressed  the  mind  even  of  a  schoolboy  with  a  sense  of 
respect   for   human   nature.     Inside,   the  nave   spreads 
wide,  and  the   aisles,  with  their  dignified  perpendicular 
tracery,  lift  their  arches  high,  so  that  the  light  streams 
free  in  every  part,  and  the  outer  world  seems  to  mingle 
unquestioned  with  the  sacred  enclosure. 

The  free  grammar-school   to  which  the  Wordsworth 
boys  were  sent  was  founded  in  1585  by  Edwin  Sandys, 


3o  ORIGINS  AND  CHILDHOOD         [chap,  ii 

Archbishop  of  York,  a  native  of  the  region.  The  build- 
ing, containing  one  large  and  two  small  schoolrooms 
and  the  head-master's  apartment,  is  a  substantial  and 
simple  structure.  A  large  square  schoolroom,  with  an 
ample  fireplace,  occupies  most  of  the  ground-floor,  and 
above  are  apartments  for  the  master  and  the  usher.* 
The  old  "  forms,"  or  long  desks,  still  stand  about  the 
walls,  and  in  one  of  them  can  be  seen  the  name  "  William 
Wordsworth  "  deep  carved  in  schoolboy  fashion.  Pure 
country  air,  blowing  unchecked  from  field  and  lake, 
enters  through  the  wide  door  and  big  windows. 
Not  even  the  Gothic  luxuriance  of  Winchester  or 
Eton  gives  so  full  a  sense  of  appropriate  surroundings 
for  the  education  of  boys.  The  provision  for  their 
minds  ma}7  not  have  been  as  complex  as  that  to  be  found 
in  the  more  famous  Southern  seminaries,  but  it  was  well 
selected,  and  quite  generous  enough  when  to  it  were 
added  the  outside  influences  that  co-operated  with 
books  and  teachers.  Latin,  mathematics,  and  the 
elements  of  Greek,  were  the  staple  subjects  taught. 
The  morning  session  began  between  six  and  half-past 
in  summer,  and  at  seven  in  winter,  and  lasted  till  eleven. 
The  afternoon  session  was  from  one  to  five  in  summer, 
and  from  one  to  four  in  winter.  At  all  other  times  the 
boys  were  free,  since  the  preparation  of  lessons  was  made 
in  school.  According  to  the  requirements  of  the 
founder,  there  was,  besides  the  master,  an  usher,  or 
assistant,  and  they  were  both  obliged  to  be  present 
during  school  hours.  Wordsworth,  in  the  autobiographi- 
cal sketch,  says  of  his  Hawkshead  life: 

"  Of  my  earliest  days  at  school  I  have  little  to  say, 
but  that  they  were  very  happy  ones,  chiefly  because  I 
was  left  at  liberty,  then  and  in  the  vacations,  to  read 
whatever  books  I  liked.  For  example,  I  read  all  Field- 
ing's works,  '  Don  Quixote,'  '  Gil  Bias,'  and  any  part  of 
Swift  that  I  liked ;  '  Gulliver's  Travels  '  and  the  '  Tale 
of  the  Tub  '  being  both  much  to  my  taste.  I  was  very 
much  indebted  to  one  of  the  ushers  of  Hawkshead 
School,  by  name  Shaw,  who  taught  me  more  of  Latin 

*  The  attendance  has  of  late  so  dwindled  that  it  has  been  found  neces- 
sary to  close  this  ancient  school. 


1778-1787]     HAWKSHEAD  GRAMMAR  SCHOOL      31 

in  a  fortnight  than  I  had  learnt  during  two  preceding 
years  at  the  school  of  Cockermouth.  Unfortunately  for 
me,  this  excellent  master  left  our  school,  and  went  to 
Stafford,  where  he  taught  for  many  years.  It  may  be 
perhaps  as  well  to  mention,  that  the  first  verses  which 
I  wrote  were  a  task  imposed  by  my  master;  the  subject, 
'  The  Summer  Vacation  ' ;  and  of  my  own  accord  I  added 
others  upon  '  Return  to  School.'  There  was  nothing 
remarkable  in  either  poem ;  but  I  was  called  upon,  among 
other  scholars,  to  write  verses  upon  the  completion  of 
the  second  centenary  from  the  foundation  of  the  school 
in  1585,  by  Archbishop  Sandys.  These  verses  were 
much  admired,  far  more  than  they  deserved,  for  they 
were  but  a  tame  imitation  of  Pope's  versification,  and  a 
little  in  his  style.  This  exercise,  however,  put  it  into 
my  head  to  compose  verses  from  the  impulse  of  my  own 
mind,  and  I  wrote,  while  yet  a  schoolboy,  a  long  poem 
running  upon  my  own  adventures,  and  the  scenery  of 
the  country  in  which  I  was  brought  up.  The  only  part 
of  that  poem  which  has  been  preserved  is  the  conclusion 
of  it,  which  stands  at  the  beginning  of  my  collected 
poems." 

William  Taylor,  who  was  head-master  from  1 782  to 
1786,  when  he  died  in  the  midst  of  his  scholars,  is  the 
person  to  whom  the  poet  refers  in  the  lines  beginning, 
"  I  come,  ye  little  noisy  Crew,"  and  in  the  succeeding 
elegies.  He  also  furnished  some  of  the  traits  for  the  old 
man  in  "  The  Two  April  Mornings  "  and  "  The  Foun- 
tain," and  perhaps  for  one  of  the  characters  in  "  Ex- 
postulation and  Reply  "  and  "  The  Tables  Turned." 
Years  after  Taylor's  death,  the  poet,  standing  opposite 
the  tablet  in  the  schoolroom  on  which  his  name  and  the 
record  of  his  service  were  inscribed,  composed  his 
"  Matthew,"  in  which  he  gives  a  glimpse  of  the  happy 
schoolmaster : 

Poor  Matthew,  all  his  frolics  o'er, 
Is  silent  as  a  standing  pool ; 
Far  from  the  chimney's  merry  roar, 
And  murmur  of  the  village  school. 

The  sighs  which  Matthew  heaved  were  sighs 
Of  one  tired  out  with  fun  and  madness; 
The  tears  which  came  to  Matthew's  eyes 
Were  tears  of  light,  the  dew  of  gladnebb. 


32  ORIGINS  AND  CHILDHOOD  'chap,  n 

The  gay  old  man,  something  between  a  schoolmaster  and 
a  retired  labourer,  whose  image  shapes  itself  in  one's 
mind  on  reading  these  poems,  can  have  been  only  sug- 
gested by  Taylor,  who  was  but  thirty-two  when  he  died ; 
yet  the  fact  that  the  poet  could  think  thus  of  a  teacher 
/'many  years  his  senior  shows  that  the  latter  must  have 
been  a  singularly  gentle  and  humorous  person,  and  the 
boy  beyond  his  age  advanced  in  sympathy  with  mature 
minds.  Taylor  died  in  office,  bidding  farewell  to  the 
boys  from  his  death-bed.  So  deep  was  the  impression 
made  on  the  poet's  mind  by  this  incident,  that  thirteen 
years  afterwards,  when  he  was  spending  a  winter  in 
Germany,  he  wrote,  probably  retouching  an  earlier 
effusion : 

I  come,  ye  little  noisy  Crew, 
Not  long  your  pastime  to  prevent; 
I  heard  the  blessing  which  to  you 
Our  common  Friend  and  Father  sent. 
I  kissed  his  cheek  before  he  died ; 
And  when  his  breath  was  fled, 
I  raised,  while  kneeling  by  his  side, 
His  hand: — it  dropped  like  lead. 
***** 

By  night  or  day,  blow  foul  or  fair, 
Ne'er  will  the  best  of  all  your  train 
Play  with  the  locks  of  his  white  hair, 
Or  stand  between  his  knees  again. 

Here  did  he  sit  confined  for  hours; 
But  he  could  see  the  woods  and  plains, 
Could  hear  the  wind  and  mark  the  showers 
Come  streaming  down  the  streaming  panes. 
Now  stretched  beneath  his  grass-green  mound 
He  rests  a  prisoner  of  the  ground. 
He  loved  the  breathing  air, 
He  loved  the  sun,  but  if  it  rise 
Or  set,  to  him  where  now  he  lies, 
Brings  not  a  moment's  care. 

And  then,  in  the  accompanying  "  Dirge,"  the  poet  calls 
on  various  persons,  doubtless  familiar  characters  in 
Hawkshead  and  its  neighbourhood,  to  mourn  his  beloved 
teacher:  the  Shepherd  near  the  old  grey  stone,  the 
Angler  by  the  silent  flood,  the  Woodman,  the  blind 
Sailor,  the  half-witted  deaf-mute  Boy.     "  True  of  heart, 


177S-1787]  HIS  TEACHERS  33 

of  spirit  gay  " — so  much  foundation  at  least  for  the 
homely  figure  of  Matthew  was  the  gift  of  the  Rev. 
William  Taylor,  M.A.,  of  Emmanuel  College,  Cambridge. 
Like  the  Wanderer  in  "  The  Excursion,"  the  School- 
master of  these  poems  "  was  made  up  of  several  both 
of  his  class  and  men  of  other  occupations."  [Words- 
worth's note  to  "  Matthew."] 

Eight  years  later,  as  is  recorded  in  "  The  Prelude,"* 
the  poet  made  a  pilgrimage  to  Cartmell  churchyard, 
where  Taylor  was  buried  : 

That  very  morning  had  I  turned  aside 

To  seek  the  ground  where,  'mid  a  throng  of  graves, 

An  honoured  teacher  of  my  youth  was  laid, 

And  on  the  stone  were  graven  by  his  desire 

Lines  from  the  churchyard  elegy  of  Gray. 

This  faithful  guide,  speaking  from  his  death-bed, 

Added  no  farewell  to  his  parting  counsel, 

But  said  to  me,  "  My  head  will  soon  lie  low  "; 

And  when  I  saw  the  turf  that  covered  him, 

After  the  lapse  of  full  eight  years,  those  words, 

With  sound  of  voice  and  countenance  of  the  Man, 

Came  back  upon  me,  so  that  some  few  tears 

Fell  from  me  in  my  own  despite.     But  now 

I  thought,  still  traversing  that  widespread  plain, 

With  tender  pleasure  of  the  verses  graven 

Upon  his  tombstone,  whispering  to  myself: 

He  loved  the  Poets,  and,  if  now  alive, 

Would  have  loved  me,  as  one  not  destitute 

Of  promise,  nor  belying  the  kind  hope 

That  he  had  formed,  when  I,  at  his  command, 

Began  to  spin,  with  toil,  my  earliest  songs. 

The  boy  was  happy  in  having  teachers  with  traits  of 
character  so  winsome  that  memory  could  compose  from 
them  the  picture  of  a  Matthew,  humorous  and  wise, 
companionable  to  a  lad  younger  than  himself,  yet 
rousing  boyish  reverence  when  he  retired  to  the  depths 
of  his  experience.  Wordsworth  was  also  fortunate  in 
that  the  superiority  of  his  intellect  proved  no  barrier 
between  him  and  his  mates.  He  shared  their  life  whole- 
heartedly. To  judge  from  his  account  of  it  in  "  The 
Prelude,"  one  would  say  that  because  they  were  boys 
and  happy  they  were  all  more  or  less  poets.     They  were 

*  x.  532. 
I-  3 


34  ORIGINS  AND  CHILDHOOD  [chap,  n 

drawn  from  a  wide  range  of  society :  sons  of  country 
clergymen  and   the  professional  and  business  men  of 
north-country  towns,  sons  of  villagers  and  small  farmers. 
The  most  fortunate  class  of  all  Englishmen  who  laboured 
with    their   hands,    in    the    eighteenth    and    nineteenth 
centuries,  were  the  small  farmers    or  "  statesmen  "  in 
the  vales  of  Westmorland,  Cumberland    and   northern 
Lancashire.     Their   ancestors   came  into   possession   of 
the  soil   before  the   Reformation,  when  the  monks  of 
Furness  Abbey  and  other  great  land-owning  ecclesiastical 
establishments   encouraged   independent   settlement   in 
place  of  feudal  tenure  or  mere  tenantship,  in  the  hope 
of  providing  a  larger  and  more  stubborn  population  for 
defence  against  the  Scottish  raiders.     They  had  thus, 
in  Wordsworth's  time,  been  for  several  centuries  raised 
above  the  position  of  tenant  farmers.      They  tilled  their 
own  soil,  to  which  they  clung  with  deep  attachment, 
sentimental    considerations    blending    with    economic. 
They  were  equally  disposed  to  guard  with  jealous  de- 
fiance their  rights  of  pasturage  on  the  fells  or  moun- 
tain-tops.    The  boldness  of  character  which   they  in- 
herited   from    their   Scandinavian   forefathers   was   re- 
enforced  by  the  sense  of  possession.     Yet  a  spirit  of 
adventure  and  the  influence  of  their  religious  teachers 
kept  them  aloof  from  the  greedy  land-hunger  and  the 
consequent    parsimony    which    are    noticeable    among 
peasant  proprietors  in  France.     Like  the  corresponding 
class  in  Scotland,  they  were  alive  to  the  superiority  of 
mental   attainments,  and  ready   to   make   sacrifices   to 
educate  their  children.     In  a  letter  on  popular  educa- 
tion, Wordsworth,  in   1808,  referred  as  follows  to  this 
trait  of  the  farmers  in  the  Lake  District  :* 

"  We  have,  thank  Heaven,  free  schools,  or  schools  with 
some  endowment,  almost  everywhere;  and  almost  every- 
one can  read.  But  not  because  we  have  free  or  endowed 
schools,  but  because  our  land  is,  far  more  than  elsewhere, 
tilled  by  men  who  are  the  owners  of  it ;  and  as  the  popu- 
lation is  not  overcrowded,  and  the  vices  which  are 
quickened  and  cherished  in  a  crowded  population  do 

*  "  Memoirs,"  II.  170. 


1778-1787]  HAPPY  SCHOOL-DAYS  35 

not  therefore  prevail,  parents  have  more  ability  and 
inclination  to  send  their  children  to  school ;  much  more 
than  in  manufacturing  districts,  and  also,  though  in  a 
less  degree,  more  than  in  agricultural  ones  where  the 
tillers  are  not  proprietors." 

The  boys  lived  frugally  and  on  a  plane  of  equality, 
lodging  and  boarding  with  Hawkshead  families,  of  whose 
home-life  they  made  a  part.  Some  of  the  boys  the  poet 
mentions  by  name,  and  not  a  few  of  their  exploits  he 
records  in  "  The  Prelude  "  and  in  scattered  notes.  The 
kind  dame  with  whom  he  lived  was  Anne  Tyson,  whom 
he  always  held  in  grateful  memory  for  her  motherly 
care.  Her  cottage  was,  and  is,  a  grey  stone  dwelling, 
two  stories  high,  on  a  side-street.  An  ash-tree  stood 
before  it,  and  through  its  garden  sang  the  imprisoned 
brook.  A  sweet  harmony  bound  together  the  hours  in 
school  with  the  unmeasured  time  of  play  and  repose  in 
Hawkshead  homes,  and  of  adventure  in  the  open  coun- 
try; and  the  sunny  seat  "  round  the  stone  table  under 
the  dark  pine,"  before  Dame  Tyson's  cottage,  was 
friendly  alike  "  to  studious  or  to  festive  hours."  From 
the  early  books  of  "  The  Prelude  "  emerges  an  engaging 
picture  of  a  happy  childhood,  as  normal  a  childhood  as 
there  could  be  without  the  abiding  presence  of  a  father 
and  mother.  M.  Legouis  has  pointed  out*  the  great 
difference  between  Wordsworth's  cheerful  memories  of 
school  life  and  the  sadness  or  indignation  with  which 
many  French  men  of  letters  have  recalled  the  years  they 
spent  in  the  confinement  of  their  lycees.  English  poets, 
too,  have,  in  some  cases,  lamented  the  melancholy  cir- 
sumstances  of  their  boyhood,  the  separation  from  home, 
and  the  brutality  of  school  customs,  not  to  mention  the 
necessary  and  probably  salutary  routine.  The  school 
days  of  Coleridge,  for  example,  are  sad  to  think  upon. 
Wordsworth  looked  back  with  more  than  cheerfulness — 
with  enthusiasm  and  gratitude — to  his  Hawkshead  years. 
These  and  his  first  six  or  eight  years  at  Grasmere  were  the 
periods  when  nature  spoke  to  him  most  directly,  and 
he  lived  most  free  from  responsibilities,  growing  all  the 

*  "  La  Jeunesse  de  Wordsworth,"   Book  I.,  Chapter  II. 


36  ORIGINS  AND  CHILDHOOD         [chap,  n 

while  in  power  to  interpret  himself  and  the  world.  He 
felt  at  home  at  Hawkshead  from  the  beginning.  In  the 
very  week  of  his  arrival  a  startling  incident,*  in  which 
he  was  involved,  opened  to  him,  through  fellow-feeling, 
the  emotional  depths  of  the  place.  Walking  beside  the 
lake,  he  found  a  heap  of  clothes.  The  search  for  their 
owner  and  the  discovery  of  his  dead  body  in  the  water 
drew  the  village  together  in  terror ;  yet  "  no  soul-debasing 
fear  "  possessed  the  child,  for  he  tells  us  his 

inner  eye  had  seen 
Such  sights  before,  among  the  shining  streams 
Of  faery  land,  the  forest  of  romance. 

The  minds  of  imaginative  children  who  have  read 
fairy-tales  and  wonder-books  become  endued  with  a 
thin  but  sufficient  armour  against  the  shocks  of  reality. 
It  is  the  matter-of-fact  child  that  suffers  most  from 
violent  disturbance  of  his  expectations.  It  is  one  of 
the  immunities,  no  less  than  one  of  the  dangers,  of  poetic 
temperaments  that  they  are  spared  much  of  the  sudden- 
ness with  which  the  collisions  of  life  jar  prosaic  souls. 
The  boys  among  whom  he  herded  were 

A  race  of  real  children ;  not  too  wise, 

Too  learned,  or  too  good;  but  wanton,  fresh, 

And  bandied  up  and  down  by  love  and  hate; 

Not  unresentful  where  self-justified; 

Fierce,  moody,  patient,  venturous,  modest,  shy; 

Mad  at  their  sports  like  withered  leaves  in  winds; 

Though  doing  wrong  and  suffering,  and  full  oft 

Bending  beneath  our  life's  mysterious  weight 

Of  pain,  and  doubt,  and  fear,  yet  yielding  not 

In  happiness  to  the  happiest  upon  earth,  f 

Their  happiness  was  due  no  less  to  natural  advantages 
than  to  the  wise  liberality  with  which  they  were 
governed.  In  two  minutes  every  boy  could  run  from 
his  dame's  doorstep  to  the  open  fields,  and  at  no  great 
distance  lay  tracts  of  wood  and  moor.  They  ranged 
the  open  heights,  trapping  birds  after  dark,  and  hunting 
their  eggs  by  day,  "  shouldering  the  naked  crag."  They 
crept   forth   before  dawn   on   mysterious   errands,   and 

*  "  Prelude,"  V.  426-459.  |  Ibid.,  411. 


1778-1787] 


OUTDOOR  LIFE 


37 


played  late  into  the  "  soft  starry  nights,"  around  the 
stone  where  an  old  woman,  in  the  largest  square,  sold 

cakes  and  apples.* 

Duly  were  our  games 
Prolonged  in  summer  till  the  daylight  failed: 
No  chair  remained  before  the  doors  ;  the  bench 
And  threshold  steps  were  empty ;  fast  asleep 
The  labourer,  and  the  old  man  who  had  sate 
A  later  lingerer;  yet  the  revelry 
Continued  and  the  loud  uproar:  at  last, 
When  all  the  ground  was  dark,  and  twinkling  stars 
Edged  the  black  clouds,  home  and  to  bed  we  went, 
Feverish  with  weary  joints  and  beating  minds. 

In  autumn  they  explored  the  hazel  copses  for  nuts, 
and  all  the  green  summer  they  fished  "  By  rocks  and 
pools  shut  out  from  every  star."  From  hill- top  and 
meadow  they  flew  their  kites.     In  winter, f 

when  the  sun 
Was  set,  and  visible  for  many  a  mile 
The  cottage  windows  blazed  through  twilight  gloom, 

they   skated   through   the  darkness   below  the  solitary 

cliffs  till,  ...   ,,     ,. 

with  the  din 

Smitten,  the  precipices  rang  aloud; 

The  leafless  trees  and  every  icy  crag 

Tinkled  like  iron ;  while  far-distant  hills 

Into  the  tumult  sent  an  alien  sound 

Of  melancholy  not  unnoticed,  while  the  stars 

Eastward  were  sparkling  clear,  and  in  the  west 

The  orange  sky  of  evening  died  away. 

Thus,  he  tells  us,  his  sympathies  were  enlarged,  and  the 
daily  range  of  visible  things  grew  dear  to  him.  He 
beheld  familiar  scenes  change  with  the  revolving  year 
till  they  were  not  what  they  had  been,  and  yet  were 
mysteriously  the  same.  He  watched  the  expression  of 
nature  run  on  in  endless  variety  while  the  majestic 
presence  remained  for  ever.  The  pathos,  the  charm, 
and  the  power  of  nature  showed  themselves  in  this 
contrast.  Monotony  was  as  necessary  as  alteration  to 
reveal  the  fulness  of  the  eternal  being  and  impress  with 
awe   the   beholder's   mind.     The  events   that  fill  earth 


/ 


*   "  Prelude,"  II.  9. 


t  Ibid.,  l.  425. 


38  ORIGINS  AND  CHILDHOOD         [chap,  u 

and  sky  with  dramatic  action  forced  themselves  upon 
him  in  unsolicited  invasion.  His  soul  lay  passive  at 
first;  then  it  awoke  to  observe  actively,  and  at  last  to 
contemplate  and  respond.  From  the  danger  of  being 
prematurely  lured  away  from  the  commonplace  he  was 
saved  by  the  lusty  sports  of  his  fellows;  yet  he  was 
always  so  much  unlike  ordinary  boys  as  to  remind  one 
of  Rousseau's  remark,  "  Thoughtless  boys  make  com- 
monplace men." 

His  acquaintance  extended  from  high  to  low  through- 
out the  neighbourhood.  In  his  comment  upon  the  lines 
beginning  "  Nay,  Traveller,  rest,"  which  were  composed 
in  part  at  school  in  Hawkshead,  he  tells  us  that  his 
delight  in  a  rocky  peninsula  on  Windermere  was  so 
great  that  he  led  thither  a  youngster  about  his  own  age, 
an  Irish  boy,  who  was  servant  to  an  itinerant  conjurer. 
His  purpose  was  to  witness  the  lad's  pleasure  in  the 
prospect,  and  he  was  not  disappointed.  It  was  prob- 
ably in  the  roads  about  Hawkshead  that  he  observed 
the  old  Cumberland  beggar,  whose  helpless  existence 
was  an  appeal  to  the  charity  of  farmers'  wives  and  pass- 
ing horsemen  riding  in  the  pride  of  life.  The  Two 
Thieves,  one  a  doting  old  man  of  more  than  ninety 
years,  the  other  equally  innocent,  his  grandson,  aged 
three,  were  familiar  figures  in  the  village,  where  they 
performed  an  unconscious  ministry  of  tender-hearted- 
ness. No  one  could  behold  them  sinlessly  committing 
their  daily  crimes,  without  reflecting  on  the  nature  of 
moral  responsibility  and  making  allowance  for  im- 
maturity and  decay.  The  original  of  the  Pedlar,  in  the 
poem  which  at  first  went  by  that  name  and  was  later 
called  "  The  Excursion,"  was  a  packman  who  occasion- 
ally lived  at  Hawkshead,  with  whom  the  boy  Words- 
worth "  had  frequent  conversations  upon  what  had 
befallen  him,  and  what  he  had  observed,  during  his 
wandering  life."  And,  as  he  told  a  friend  in  after-years, 
they  took  much  to  one  another,  "  as  was  natural."  It 
is  to  this  Pedlar  that  the  following  lines  in  "  The  Ex- 
cursion "  refer.*     They  are  but  the  beginning  of  a  long 

*  I.  52. 


1773-17S7]         VILLAGE  CHARACTERS  39 

and  very  attractive  description,  one  of  the  most  com- 
plete portraits  in  Wordsworth's  gallery  of  worthies: 

We  were  tried  Friends :  amid  a  pleasant  vale, 
In  the  antique  market-village  where  was  passed 
My  school-time,  an  apartment  he  had  owned, 
To  which  at  intervals  the  Wanderer  drew, 
And  found  a  kind  of  home  or  harbour  there. 
He  loved  me;  from  a  swarm  of  rosy  boys 
Singled  out  me,  as  he  in  sport  would  say, 
For  my  grave  looks,  too  thoughtful  for  my  years. 
A6  I  grew  up,  it  was  my  best  delight 
To  be  his  chosen  comrade.     Many  a  time, 
On  holidays,  we  rambled  through  the  woods : 
We  sate — we  walked ;  he  pleased  me  with  report 
Of  things  which  he  had  seen ;  and  often  touched 
Abstrusest  matter,  reasonings  of  the  mind 
Turned  inwards;  or  at  my  request  would  sing 
Old  songs,  the  product  of  his  native  hills. 

Another  of  his  grown-up  friends,  living  near  Hawks- 
head,  was  the  man  to  whom  he  attached  himself  one  day 
when  the  common  delusion  of  anglers  caused  him  to 
believe  that  the  farther  from  home  the  better  the  fishing. 
They  worked  their  way  to  the  sources  of  the  Duddon, 
high  in  the  mountains,  and  with  small  success.  When 
the  rain  began  to  fall  in  torrents,  the  little  fisherman, 
hungry  and  tired  and  wet,  had  to  be  carried  home  on 
his  friend's  back.  The  Jacobite  and  the  Hanoverian, 
who  figure  in  the  same  poem,  were  drawn  from  "  two 
individuals  who,  by  their  several  fortunes,  were  at  dif- 
ferent times  driven  to  take  refuge  at  the  small  and  ob- 
scure town  of  Hawkshead  on  the  skirt  of  these  moun- 
tains. Their  stories  I  had  from  the  dear  old  dame  with 
whom,  as  a  schoolboy  and  afterwards,  I  lodged  for  the 
space  of  nearly  ten  years."* 

In  wilder  flight,  the  boys  rowed  races  on  Windermere, 
played  on  the  bowling-green,  and  ate  strawberries  and 
cream  upon  its  farther  shore,  and,  as  their  utmost  ex- 
travagance, visited  on  horseback  ancient  landmarks  far 
away,  such  as  Furness  Abbey.  These  were  exceptional 
treats,  exhausting  their  little  weekly  stipend,  so  that 

*  Note  to  "  The  Excursion,"  dictated  by  Wordsworth  to  Miss  Fenwick, 
about  1843. 


40  ORIGINS  AND  CHILDHOOD  [cha*.*! 

three-quarters  of  the  year  they  "  lived  in  penniless 
poverty."  Plain  and  simple  was  the  ordinary  fare,  and 
quiet  were  the  usual  pursuits.  They  had  their  "  home 
amusements  by  the  warm  peat-fire,"  at  evening,  when  a 
well-worn    pack    of    cards    did    faithful    service,    while 

Incessant  rain  was  falling,  or  the  frost 
Raged  bitterly,  with  keen  and  silent  tooth. 

There  are  two  ways  of  keeping  a  schoolboy  busy, 
which  is  the  first  condition  of  his  welfare.  One  is  by 
rigorous  discipline.  The  other  and  safer  way  is  by 
alluring  him  to  occupy  himself  in  the  pursuit  of  such 
happiness  as  is  proper  to  his  age  and  conducive  to  his 
development.  These  truisms  were  less  commonly  ac- 
cepted in  the  eighteenth  century  than  they  are  now, 
and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Wordsworth's  experience 
at  Hawkshead  was  exceptional.  The  liberty  he  enjoyed 
could  hardly  be  accorded  even  now  in  a  large  town.  It 
was  his  good-fortune  to  be  brought  up  in  the  country, 
under  generous  rules  and  among  plain  people.  He 
learned  at  Hawkshead  to  value  at  their  just  worth  the 
intelligence  and  morality  of  the  poor.  His  judgment 
of  people  in  humble  life  was  unmarred  either  by  senti- 
mental exaggeration  or  unfeeling  ignorance.  He  had 
lived  among  them,  eating  at  their  tables  and  playing 
with  their  children.  Writing  to  his  friend  Wrangham 
in  1808,  he  thus  estimates  the  book-learning  of  the  poor 
but  independent  farmers  and  villagers  among  whom  a 
large  part  of  his  boyhood  had  been  passed  :* 

"  As  far  as  my  own  observation  goes,  which  has  been 
mostly  employed  upon  agricultural  persons  in  thinly- 
peopled  districts,  I  cannot  find  that  there  is  much  dis- 
position to  read  among  the  labouring  classes,  or  much 
occasion  for  it.  .  .  .  The  labouring  man  in  agriculture 
generally  carries  on  his  work  either  in  solitude  or  with  his 
own  family — with  persons  whose  minds  he  is  thoroughly 
acquainted  with,  and  with  whom  he  is  under  no  tempta- 
tion to  enter  into  discussions  or  to  compare  opinions. 
He  goes  home  from  the  field,  or  the  barn,  and  within 
and  without  his  own  house  he  finds  a  hundred  little  jobs 

*  "  Memoirs,"  II.  175. 


1778-1787]   CONSCIOUSNESS  OF  NATURE  41 

which  furnish  him  with  a  change  of  employment  which 
is  grateful  and  profitable;  then  comes  supper,  and  bed. 
This  for  week-days.  For  Sabbaths,  he  goes  to  church 
with  us  often  or  mostly  twice  a  day;  on  coming 
home,  someone  turns  to  the  Bible,  finds  the  text,  and 
probably  reads  the  chapter  whence  it  is  taken,  or  per- 
haps some  other;  and  in  the  afternoon  the  master  or 
mistress  frequently  reads  the  Bible,  if  alone ;  and  on 
this  day  the  mistress  of  the  house  almost  always  teaches 
the  children  to  read,  or,  as  they  express  it,  hears  them 
a  lesson;  or  if  not  thus  employed,  the}*  visit  their  neigh- 
bours, or  receive  them  in  their  own  houses  as  they  drop 
in,  and  keep  up  by  the  hour  a  slow  and  familiar  chat." 

So  natural  to  him  did  this  association  become  that  he 
scarcely  refers  to  it  in  "  The  Prelude  "  among  the 
influences  which  moulded  his  mind.  That  unique  auto- 
biographical poem  traces  rather,  in  its  earl}'  books,  the 
sources  of  his  reliance  upon  his  primal  instincts  as 
developed  in  free  communion  with  nature.  Mingled 
with  the  passages  already  quoted  are  others  of  a  more 
intimate  revelation  in  which  the  adventures  of  the  spirit 
are  recorded. 

The  consciousness  of  nature  as  a  source  of  love  and  as 
a  monitor  came  to  him  in  moments  when  his  being  was 
invaded  by  a  higher  power  than  himself,  taking  tranquil 
possession  of  his  senses,  and  unexpectedly  of  his  affec- 
tions too.  A  frequently  recurring  joy,  if  it  be  pure  and 
bring  no  painful  consequences,  creates  love  for  the 
source  whence  it  is  bestowed.  So  his  heart  became 
engaged  more  deeply  with  every  sweeping  return  of 
these  dear  delights.  The  occasions  of  noticeable  growth 
to  which  he  directs  our  attention  in  the  first  book  of"  The 
Prelude  "  were  moments  when  natural  duty  and  childish 
fear  met  in  his  heart.  In  the  following  passage  he  relates 
how  his  moral  consciousness  was  bound  for  ever,  though 
by  what  might  be  called  a  mere  illusion,  to  the  ineluctable 

presences  of  nature  :* 

Ere  I  had  told 
Ten  birth-days,  when  among  the  mountain  bIo 
Frost,  and  the  breath  of  frosty  wind,  had  snapped 
The  last  autumnal  crocus,  'twas  my  joy 

*   "  Prelude,"  I.  306. 


42  ORIGINS  AND  CHILDHOOD         [chap.ii 

With  store  of  springes  o'er  my  shoulder  hung 

To  range  the  open  heights  where  woodcocks  run 

Along  the  smooth  green  turf.     Through  half  the  night, 

Scudding  away  from  snare  to  snare,  I  plied 

That  anxious  visitation; — moon  and  stars 

Were  shining  o'er  my  heady/H!  was  alone, 

And  seemed  to  be  a  trouble  to  the  peace 

That  dwelt  among  them.     Sometimes  it  befell, 

In  these  night-wanderings,  that  a  strong  desire 

O'erpowered  my  better  reason,  and  the  bird 

Which  was  the  captive  of  another's  toil 

Became  my  prey;  and  when  the  deed  was  done 

I  heard  among  the  solitary  hills 

Low  breathings  coming  after  me,  and  sounds 

Of  undistinguishable  motion,  steps 

Almost  as  silent  as  the  turf  they  trod. 

This  passage  no  doubt  had  a  significance  to  Wordsworth 
beyond  the  grasp  of  men  who  would  limit  the  origin  of 
moral  admonition  to  some  historic  "  authority,"  or 
even  to  "  the  inner  voice  "  of  conscience.  He  believed, 
and  probably  for  this  reason  treasured  up  this  incident 
and  gave  it  prominence,  that  the  soul  of  the  universe, 
uttering  its  august  precepts  through  the  clean  air  and 
the  unsullied  earth,  speaks  an  intelligible  language  to 
the  heart  of  man;  because  law  and  duty  are  the  same 
for  man  and  star  and  flower.  Many  instincts  that  we 
deem  superstition  are  probably  based  on  a  vague  appre- 
hension of  this  truth.  Many  observances  among  primi- 
tive people  bear  witness  to  it.  A  much  larger  part  of 
our  impulses  and  restraints  than  we  are  commonly  dis- 
posed to  admit  are  due  to  an  unconscious  imitation  of 
nature  in  her  qualities  analogous  to  human  virtues  such 
as  rectitude  and  prudence.     "  Thanks,"  the  poet  wrote,* 

Thanks  to  the  means  which  Nature  deigned  to  employ; 

Whether  her  fearless  visitings,  or  those 

That  came  with  soft  alarm,  like  hurtless  light 

Opening  the  peaceful  clouds ;  or  she  would  use 

Severer  interventions,  ministry 

More  palpable,  as  best  might  suit  her  aim. 

Innumerable  passages   in  his  poetry  developed   this 
thought,  now  subtly  and  speculatively,  as  in  "  Peter 

*   "  Prelude,"  I.  351. 


+  ? 


1778-1787]     GROWTH  OF  MORAL  SENSE  43 

Bell,"  now  with  eloquent  assurance,  as  in  the  "  Ode  to 
Duty."  He  has  expressed  it,  too,  in  prose  in  the  letter 
already  cited : 

"  One  of  our  neighbours,  who  lived  as  I  have  de- 
scribed [that  is,  as  a  busy  farmer,  with  little  time  for 
reading],  was  yesterday  walking  with  me;  and  as  we 
were  pacing  on,  talking  about  indifferent  matters,  by 
the  side  of  a  brook,  he  suddenly  said  to  me,  with  great 
spirit  and  a  lively  smile : '  I  like  to  walk  where  I  can  hear 
the  sound  of  a  beck!'  (the  word,  as  you  know,  in  our 
dialect  for  a  brook).  I  cannot  but  think  that  this  man, 
without  being  conscious  of  it,  has  had  many  devout 
feelings  connected  with  the  appearances  which  have 
presented  themselves  to  him  in  his  employment  as  a 
shepherd,  and  that  the  pleasure  of  his  heart  at  that 
moment  was  an  acceptable  offering  to  the  Divine  Being." 

Another  instance,  almost  crudely  definite,  may  be 
cited  to  illustrate  Wordsworth's  belief,  by  no  means 
vague,  that  nature  exercised  a  moralizing  influence  over 
him  in  his  boyhood.  One  summer  evening,  "  led  by 
her,"  he  unloosed  a  boat  and  rowed  away  in  the  moon- 
light :* 

Lustily 
I  dipped  my  oars  into  the  silent  lake, 
And,  as  I  rose  upon  the  stroke,  my  boat 
Went  heaving  through  the  water  like  a  swan ; 
When,  from  behind  that  craggy  steep  till  then 
The  horizon's  bound,  a  huge  peak,  black  and  huge 
As  if  with  voluntary  power  instinct, 
Upreared  its  head.     I  struck  and  struck  again, 
And  growing  still  in  stature  the  grim  shape 
Towered  up  between  me  and  the  stars,  and  still, 
For  so  it  seemed,  with  purpose  of  its  own 
And  measured  motion  like  a  living  thing, 
Strode  after  me.     With  trembling  oars  I  turned, 
And  through  the  silent  water  stole  my  way 
Back  to  the  covert  of  the  willow  tree; 
There  in  her  mooring-place  I  left  my  bark, — 
And  through  the  meadows  homeward  went,  in  grave 
And  serious  mood;  but  after  I  had  seen 
That  spectacle,  for  many  days,  my  brain 
Worked  with  a  dim  and  undetermined  sense 
Of  unknown  modes  of  being;  o'er  my  thoughts 

*   "  Prelude,"  I.  356. 


44  ORIGINS  AND  CHILDHOOD         [chap,  n 

There  hung  a  darkness,  call  it  solitude 
Or  blank  desertion.     No  familiar  shapes 
Remained,  no  pleasant  images  of  trees, 
Of  sea  or  sky,  no  colours  of  green  fields ; 
But  huge  and  mighty  forms,  that  do  not  live 
Like  living  men,  moved  slowly  through  the  mind 
By  day,  and  were  a  trouble  to  my  dreams. 

Call  it  ecstasy  or  the  unconscious  exercise  of  reason, 
the  state  of  mind  when  such  influxes  of  experience  are 
possible  is  the  requisite  condition  of  growth  in  child- 
hood. The  soul  is  startled  into  self-consciousness,  and 
then  awed  by  becoming  aware  of  the  deep  community 
that  binds  it  to  the  life  even  of  insensate  things.  A 
little  later,  diffidence  and  veneration  guide  the  older 
child.  "  Such  virtues,"  Wordsworth  tells  us,*  "  are  the 
sacred  attributes  of  youth ;  its  appropriate  calling  is  not 
to  distinguish  in  the  fear  of  being  deceived  or  degraded, 
not  to  analyze  with  scrupulous  minuteness,  but  to 
accumulate  in  genial  confidence;  its  instinct,  its  safety, 
its  benefit,  its  glory,  is  to  love,  to  admire,  to  feel,  and  to 
labour."  This  the  teacher  should  remember;  he  should 
be  "  rich  in  that  knowledge  .  .  .  which  cannot  exist 
without  a  liveliness  of  memory,  preserving  for  him  an 
unbroken  image  of  the  winding,  excursive,  and  often 
retrograde  course,  along  which  his  own  intellect  has 
passed."  Yet  even  thus  furnished,  and  "  governed 
habitually  by  the  wisdom  of  patience,  waiting  with 
pleasure  .  .  .  remarks  may  drop  insensibly  from  him 
which  shall  wither  in  the  mind  of  his  pupil  a  gener- 
ous sympathy,  destroy  a  sentiment  of  approbation 
or  dislike,  not  only  innocent  but  salutary;  and  for  the 
inexperienced  disciple  how  many  pleasures  may  be  thus 
cut  off,  what  joy,  what  admiration,  and  what  love  !" 

In  "  The  Prelude  "  the  poet  preserves  the  distinction 
between  the  process  by  which  intellectual  life  is  kindled 
in  the  child  and  that  by  which  "  the  Youth,  who  daily 
farther  from  the  east  must  travel,"  and  who  is  less 
splendidly  ministered  to,  must  win  his  way  to  a  wise 

*  Grosart,  "  Wordsworth's  Prose  Works,"  I.  325  :  a  letter  reprinted 
from  Coleridge's  Friend,  1809,  and  originally  written  in  reply  to  an  appeal 
for  advice  from  John  Wilson  (Christopher  North). 


1778-1787]  THE  FOUNTAIN  LIGHT  45 

independence.  The  examples  of  the  former  which  he 
gives  in  the  first  two  books  are  of  great  significance,  not 
merely  because  they  are  gleams  of  elusive  truth  in  a 
twilight  region  of  human  experience.  Wordsworth  is 
almost,  though  not  quite,  unique  in  the  reality  of  his 
recollections  of  these  high  places  of  childhood.  Other 
poets  have  made  their  revelations,  too.  But  he  is  unique 
in  the  degree  of  assurance  with  which  he  insists  that  these 
shadowy  recollections 

Are  yet  the  fountain  light  of  all  our  day, 
Are  yet  a  master  light  of  all  our  seeing. 

Not  only  to  the  psychology  of  childhood  does  he  con- 
tribute these  visions  of  the  soul  in  lonely  places,  but  his 
final  word  for  the  moral  guidance  of  maturity  is  to  search 
out  the  secrets  of  innocence  and  follow  the  voice  of  nature. 
If  it  be  thought  that  in  his  poetical  ascription  of  edu- 
cational power  to  nature  the  poet  has  been  too  visionary, 
we  may  fall  back  upon  a  precise  dogmatic  statement 
which  he  made  in  the  letter  just  mentioned  above. 
Referring  to  the  allurements  of  the  World  on  the  one 
hand,  and  of  Intellectual  Prowess  on  the  other,  he  wrote: 

"  Of  these  two,  each  in  this  manner  soliciting  you  to 
become  her  adherent,  you  doubt  not  which  to  prefer; 
but  oh  !  the  thought  of  moment  is  not  preference,  but 
the  degree  of  preference ;  the  passionate  and  pure  choice, 
the  inward  sense  of  absolute  and  unchangeable  devo- 
tion. .  .  .  The  question  involved  in  this  deliberation  is 
simple,  but  at  the  same  time  it  is  high  and  awful;  and  I 
would  gladly  know  whether  an  answer  has  been  returned 
satisfactory  to  the  mind.  We  will  for  a  moment  sup- 
pose that  it  cannot ;  that  there  is  a  startling  and  a  hesi- 
tation. Are  we  then  to  despond — to  retire  from  all 
contest  —  and  to  reconcile  ourselves  at  once  to  cares 
without  a  generous  hope,  and  to  efforts  in  which  there  is 
no  more  moral  life  than  that  which  is  found  in  the  busi- 
ness and  labours  of  the  unfavoured  and  unaspiring  many  ? 
No.  But  if  the  inquiry  have  not  been  on  just  grounds 
satisfactorily  answered,  we  may  refer  confidently  our 
youth  to  that  nature  of  which  he  deems  himself  an 
enthusiastic  follower,  and  one  who  wishes  to  continue  no 
less  faithful  and  enthusiastic.  We  would  tell  him  that 
there  are  paths  which  he  has  not  trodden ;  recesses  which 


46  ORIGINS  AND  CHILDHOOD  [chap,  ii 

he  has  not  penetrated ;  that  there  is  a  beauty  which  he 
has  not  seen,  a  pathos  which  he  has  not  felt,  a  sublimity 
to  which  he  has  not  been  raised.     If  he  have  trembled 
because   there  has  occasionally  taken  place  in  him  a 
lapse  of  which  he  has  been  conscious ;  if  he  foresees  open 
or  secret  attacks,  which  he  has  had  intimations  that  he 
will  neither  be  strong  enough  to  resist,  nor  watchful 
enough  to  elude,  let  him  not  hastily  ascribe  this  weakness, 
this  deficiency,  and  the  painful  apprehensions  accom- 
panying them,  in  any  degree  to  the  virtues  or  noble  quali- 
ties with  which  youth  by  nature  is  furnished  ;  but  let  him 
first  be  assured,  before  he  looks  about  for  the  means  of 
obtaining  the  insight,  the  discriminating  powers,  and  the 
confirmed  wisdom  of  manhood,  that  his  soul  has  more  to 
demand  of  the  appropriate  excellencies  of  youth  than 
youth  has  yet  supplied  to  it ;  that  the  evil  under  which  he 
labours  is  not  a  superabundance  of  the  instincts  and  the 
animating  spirit  of  that  age,  but  a  falling  short  or  a 
failure.     But  what  can  he  gain  from  this  admonition  ? 
He  cannot  recall  past  time;  he  cannot  begin  his  journey 
afresh ;  he  cannot  untwist  the  links  by  which,  in  no  un- 
delightful  harmony,  images  and  sentiments  are  wedded 
in  his  mind.     Granted  that  the  sacred  light  of  childhood 
is  and  must  be  for  him  no  more  than  a  remembrance. 
He  may,  notwithstanding,  be  remanded  to  nature,  and 
with  trustworthy  hopes,  founded  less  upon  his  sentient 
than  upon  his  intellectual  being;  to  nature,  as  leading 
on  insensibly  to  the  society  of  reason,  but  to  reason  and 
will,  as  leading  back  to  the  wisdom  of  nature.    A  reunion, 
in  this  order  accomplished,  will  bring  reformation  and 
timely  support ;  and  the  two  powers  of  reason  and  nature, 
thus    reciprocally    teacher    and    taught,    may    advance 
together  in  a  track  to  which  there  is  no  limit." 

It  has  often  been  remarked  that  his  works,  particularly 
"  The  Prelude,"  show  Wordsworth  to  have  been  a 
reader  of  Rousseau.  And  although  it  might  be  difficult 
to  cite  many  passages  in  which  Rousseau's  teachings 
are  distinctly  traceable,  there  can  hardly  be  any  doubt 
that  he  was.  But  no  connection  has  been  traced  be- 
tween the  mode  of  life  at  Hawkshead  School  and  the 
pedagogical  theories  expressed  in  Rousseau's  "  £mile." 
For  one  thing,  and  the  most  important,  the  education 
outlined  in  "  £mile  "  is  an  education  by  hand,  a  super- 
vision of  a  single  child  by  a  single  tutor.     The  picture — 


1778-1787]       ROUSSEAU'S  PHILOSOPHY  47 

an  exaggerated  one,  to  be  sure,  and  not  fully  warranted 
by  the  book,  but,  nevertheless,  the  image  it  has  created 
in  most  minds — the  picture  we  frame  of  fimile  walking 
in  fancied  freedom  amid  educational  traps  laid  by  his 
invisible  and  omniscient  goiwerneur,  is  as  different  as 
could  be  from  the  vision  we  have  in  Wordsworth's 
pages,  of  Hawkshead  boys  at  liberty,  forming  their 
characters  by  intercourse  with  one  another  and  with  the 
villagers,  without  supervision  or  plan.  Yet,  distinguish- 
ing between  the  state  of  Hawkshead  School,  with  which 
Rousseau's  ideas  may  have  had  nothing  to  do,  and  the 
image  of  the  life  there,  reflected  many  years  later  in 
Wordsworth's  poetry,  we  find  in  "  The  Prelude  "  in- 
dubitable evidences  that  Wordsworth  had  absorbed  the 
philosophy  of  "  £mile."  The  fundamental  principle  of 
the  latter  is  "  the  incontestable  maxim  that  Nature's 
first  impulses  are  always  right,  and  there  is  no  original 
perversity  in  the  human  heart."  It  follows  that  "  the 
greatest,  the  most  important,  the  most  useful  rule  in 
education  is  not  to  gain  time,  but  to  lose  it,"  and  so 
"  the  first  step  in  education  should  be  purely  negative; 
it  consists,  not  in  teaching  virtue  and  truth,  but  in  guard- 
ing the  heart  from  vice  and  the  mind  from  error."  To 
anyone  fresh  from  reading  the  first,  second,  and  fourth 
books  of  "  The  Prelude,"  these  laws  of  Rousseau  sound 
familiar,  and  that,  too,  in  spite  of  Wordsworth's  effort, 
in  the  fifth  book,  to  express  his  disapproval  of  the  arti- 
ficial systems  of  education  suggested  by  the  "  £mile  "  and 
worked  out  by  some  of  Rousseau's  disciples.     He  speaks 

scornfully*  of  those 

who  have  the  skill 
To  manage  books  and  things,  and  make  them  act 
On  infant  minds  as  surely  as  the  sun 
Deals  with  a  flower  ; 

and  asks : 

When  will  their  presumption  learn 
That  in  the  unreasoning  progress  of  the  world 
A  wiser  spirit  is  at  work  for  us, 
A  better  eye  than  theirs,  most  prodigal 
Of  blessings,  and  most  studious  of  our  good, 
Even  in  what  seem  our  most  unfruitful  hours  ? 

*   "  Prelude,"  V.  349"363- 


48  ORIGINS  AND  CHILDHOOD  [chap,  ii 

No  doubt  he  has  in  mind  especially  Thomas  Day,  the 
author  of  the  edifying  "  History  of  Sandford  and 
Merton,"  which  bears  much  the  same  relation  to 
"  fimile  "  that  "  The  Swiss  Family  Robinson  "  bears  to 
"  Robinson  Crusoe."  "  Sandford  and  Merton  "is  by  no 
means  a  contemptible  book.  Its  purpose  was  to  show  how 
lax  and  impersonal,  how  ill  adapted  to  particular  cases, 
were  the  methods  of  English  public  schools,  where  little 
regard  was  had  to  the  individual  aptitudes  of  the  boys. 
But  while  evidently  an  imitation  of  "  Emile,"  it  missed 
the  real  point  of  its  original,  which  is  that  the  education 
of  children  should  consist  first  and  mainly  in  keeping 
them  free  for  the  kindly  work  of  nature.  Under  this 
principle  in  Rousseau  lies  a  profound  faith  in  the  sacred- 
ness  of  childhood.  The  child  is  sacred  not  merely  be- 
cause he  is  father  of  the  man,  in  the  sense  of  being  that 
from  which  a  man  develops,  but  because  he  is  the  divinely 
rich  and  divinely  pure  source  from  which  manhood  is 
but  a  dwindling  and  corrupted  stream.  With  Rousseau, 
confidence  in  the  goodness  of  childhood  and  admiration 
of  the  glory  of  childhood  were  religious  intuitions.  The 
depth  of  feeling  in  Rousseau's  "  Emile  "  could  not,  one 
might  think,  fail  to  be  perceived  by  even  the  most 
prosaic  reader.  It  is  a  perfectly  sincere  book.  It  is 
eloquent  without  effort.  It  is  reasonable  without  being 
argumentative.  Its  author  was  troubled  by  no  doubts 
as  to  the  truth  of  his  principles.  The  eloquence  and 
reasonableness  of  this  noble  work  found  no  direct  echo  in 
England  before  Wordsworth,  and  it  was  constantly 
misrepresented.  The  world  too  often  refuses  to  accept 
literally  the  sincerest  maxims  of  great  moralists.  "  This 
is  a  paradox,"  we  blandly  say,  and  pass  it  by.  Thomas 
Day  could  not  believe  that  Rousseau  was  in  earnest 
when  he  declared  that  "  the  first  step  in  education 
should  be  purely  negative."  Cowper,  whose  "  Tyro- 
cinium  "  is  a  satire  on  the  traditional  methods  of  educa- 
tion, was  restrained  by  his  theological  convictions  from 
admitting  that  "  nature's  first  impulses  are  always 
right."  He  disapproves  of  schools,  and  would  even 
appear  to  advocate  for  all  boys  what  Rousseau  approved 


1778-1787]  RELIGIOUS  INSTINCTS  49 

in  special  cases — namely,  training  them  singly  by  private 
tutors.  Yet  with  all  his  characteristic  sincerity  his 
treatment  of  this  great  subject  is  trifling  in  comparison 
with  Rousseau's.  To  the  Genevan  a  reverent  and  wise 
theory  for  the  conduct  of  childhood  was  the  inner  side,  the 
personal  and  individual  side,  of  a  complete  philosophy  of 
life.  Its  social  mandates  were  based  on  the  same  princi- 
ples :  respect  for  nature,  and  reverence  for  man  in  his  origi- 
nal divinity.  The  spirit  of  "  Emile  "  is  nothing  less  than 
religious  fervour.  No  English  writer  on  education  in 
the  century  before  Wordsworth,  not  even  Cowper,  was 
touched  with  this  fire.  But  it  leaped  into  every  fibre 
of  Wordsworth's  heart  and  glowed  for  many  years,  if  not, 
indeed,  to  the  end  of  his  life,  the  central  heat  of  his  being. 
Perhaps  we  have  for  this  reason  a  less  accurate  de- 
scription of  the  poet's  school  days,  in  "  The  Prelude," 
than  we  should  have  if  he  had  not  remembered  them 
in  the  light  of  a  religious  principle;  though  accuracy, 
indeed,  may  well  be  dispensed  with  here,  for  the  sake  of 
what  he  has  given  us.  Not  unmindful  was  he  of  Rous- 
seau's doctrine  when  he  wrote:* 

Wisdom  and  Spirit  of  the  universe  ! 

Thou  Soul  that  art  the  eternity  of  thought, 

That  givest  to  forms  and  images  a  breath 

And  everlasting  motion,  not  in  vain 

By  day  or  star-light  thus  from  my  first  dawn 

Of  childhood  didst  thou  intertwine  for  me 

The  passions  that  build  up  our  human  soul; 

>.'ot  with  the  mean  and  vulgar  works  of  man, 

But  with  high  objects,  with  enduring  things — 

With  life  and  nature — purifying  thus 

The  elements  of  feeling  and  of  thought, 

And  sanctifying,  by  such  discipline, 

Both  pain  and  fear,  until  we  recognize 

A  grandeur  in  the  beatings  of  the  heart. 

From  such  a  source  descended  the  gifts  to  which  his 
heart  was  kept  open  by  the  happy  accident  of  having 
come  to  Hawkshead.     "  Easily,  indeed,"  he  says, 

We  might  have  fed  upon  a  fatter  soil 

Of  arts  and  letters — but  be  that  forgiven. 

*  "  Prelude,"  I.  401. 


50  ORIGINS  AND  CHILDHOOD  [chap,  n 

The  boys  were  thrown  upon  their  own  resources  for 
entertainment  as  well  as  for  intellectual  advancement, 
"  for,  exclude,"  he  writes, 

A  little  weekly  stipend,  and  we  lived 
Through  three  divisions  of  the  quartered  year 
In  penniless  poverty. 

In  this  vacancy,  nature  deigned  to  work ;  and  her  opera- 
tion was  described  in  terms  to  which  we  are  bound  to 
attach  a  meaning  none  the  less  real  because  we  cannot 
understand  the  process  ourselves:* 

Ye  Presences  of  Nature  in  the  sky 
And  on  the  earth  !     Ye  Visions  of  the  hills  ! 
And  Souls  of  lonely  places  !  can  I  think 
A  vulgar  hope  was  yours  when  ye  employed 
Such  ministry,  when  ye  through  many  a  year 
Haunting  me  thus  among  my  boyish  sports, 
On  caves  and  trees,  upon  the  woods  and  hills, 
Impressed,  upon  all  forms,  the  characters 
Of  danger  or  desire;  and  thus  did  make 
The  surface  of  the  universal  earth, 
With  triumph  and  delight,  with  hope  and  fear, 
Work  like  a  sea  ? 

These  were  tributes  brought  by  nature  to  her  child 
from  earth  and  sky;  but  a  finer  harvest  of  delights 
was  his  also,  when  his  mind,  turning  inward,  became 
aware  of  a  divine  relationship  not  expressed  through 
objects  of  sense.  And  when  once  this  consciousness 
was  awake  in  him,  he  faced  about  to  the  external  world 
with  a  new  power  of  apprehension,  a  feeling  of  oneness, 

so  thatj 

[He]  held  unconscious  intercourse  with  beauty 
Old  as  creation,  drinking  in  a  pure 
Organic  pleasure. 

And  this  he  could  do  because  he  had  felt  an  intellectual 
charm  in  the  hallowed  and  pure  motions  of  sense,  a 
calm  delight,  he  says, %  which  surely  must  belong 

To  those  first-born  affinities  that  fit 
Our  new  existence  to  existing  things, 
And,  in  our  dawn  of  being,  constitute 
A  bond  of  union  between  life  and  joy. 

*  "  Prelude,"  I.  463.  \  Ibid.,  562.  %  Ibid.   555. 


1778-1787]       FREE  CHOICE  OF  BOOKS  51 

Through  pure  and  natural  pleasures,  whether  half 
physical  or  altogether  of  the  intelligence,  "  the  common 
round  of  visible  things  "  grew  dear  to  him;  his  sym- 
pathies were  enlarged;  at  last  his  soul  could  stand  alone, 
unassisted  by  the  "  incidental  charms  "  which  first 
attached  his  heart  to  rural  objects,  and 

Nature,  intervenient  till  this  time 

And  secondary,  now  at  length  was  sought 

For  her  own  sake. 

Alone  or  with  a  friend  he  often  walked,  before  school 
hours,  the  full  round  of  Esthwaite  water,  "  five  miles  of 
pleasant  wandering,"  exulting  in  fellowship  with  nature's 
beauty,  finding  kindred  moods  in  nature's  morning  face, 
and  storing  up  "  an  obscure  sense  of  possible  sublimity," 
whereto  he  might  aspire,  as  to  an  unattainable  goal  of 
his  growing  faculties.  His  liberty  extended  to  choice 
of  books.  Such  liberty  Coleridge,  too,  enjoyed,  and  to 
this  Wordsworth  refers,  when  he  rejoices  for  them  both, 
that  they  have  escaped  the  interference  of  system- 
mongers,  with  their  surveillance,  their  examinations, 
their  artificial  standards.     I  will  pour  out,  he  says,* 

Thanks  with  uplifted  heart,  that  I  was  reared 

Safe  from  an  evil  which  these  days  have  laid 

Upon  the  children  of  the  land,  a  pest 

That  might  have  dried  me  up,  body  and  soul. 

Thi6  verse  is  dedicate  to  Nature's  6elf, 

And  things  that  teach  as  Nature  teaches:  then, 

Oh  !  where  had  been  the  Man,  the  Poet  where, 

Where  had  we  been,  we  two,  beloved  Friend  ! 

If  in  the  season  of  unperilous  choice, 

In  lieu  of  wandering,  as  we  did,  through  vales 

Rich  with  indigenous  produce,  open  ground 

Of  Fancy,  happy  pastures  ranged  at  will, 

We  had  been  followed,  hourly  watched,  and  noosed, 

Each  in  his  several  melancholy  walk 

Stringed  like  a  poor  man '6  heifer  at  its  feed, 

Led  through  the  lanes  in  forlorn  servitude; 

Or  rather  like  a  stalled  ox  debarred 

from  touch  of  growing  grass,  that  may  not  taste 

A  ilower  till  it  have  yielded  up  its  sweets 

A  prelibation  to  the  mower's  scythe. 

*   "  Prelude,"  V.  225. 


52  ORIGINS  AND  CHILDHOOD  [chap.h 

Among  his  treasures  was  a  volume  of  "  The  Arabian 
Nights,"  and  when  he  discovered  that  this  was  but  one 
of  four,  he  and  another  boy  hoarded  their  joint  savings 
to  buy  them ;  but  after  several  months  their  resolution 
failed.  His  taste  was  for  romances,  legends,  fictions  of 
love,  and  tales  of  warlike  adventure.  They  corresponded 
to  dumb  yearnings,  hidden  appetites,  and  from  this 
instinctive  reaching  out  after  the  wonderful  he  draws 
the  inference  that 

Our  simple  childhood  sits  upon  a  throne 
That  hath  more  power  than  all  the  elements.  * 


Something  divine  is  indicated  by  this  faculty,  which 
enables  a  child  to  sweep  away  the  objects  of  sense  and 
create  out  of  its  own  mind  a  world  not  altogether  unreal. 
The  poet  cannot  guess 

what  this  tells  of  Being  past, 
Nor  what  it  augurs  of  the  life  to  come; 

he  can  only  infer  that  the  mind  which  can  build  without 
regard  to  space  or  matter  may  itself  be  independent  of 
time,  eternal  in  self-activity. 

The  gift  of  verse  is  not  granted  to  all  poetic  souls. 
Yet  through  some  undiscovered  law  there  is  doubtless  a 
connection  between  the  power  to  think  synthetically 
and  a  tendency  to  rhythmic  expression.  Thoughts  that 
cohere  with  nature's  order  flow  of  their  own  motion  in 
musical  numbers.  A  poet  bred  in  a  civilized  community 
can  hardly  help  observing  the  advantages  of  verse  as  an 
appropriate  mould  for  his  deepest  and  most  natural 
thoughts.  The  examples  he  finds  in  books  are  to  him 
discoveries  of  the  utmost  importance.  And  thus  we 
see  Wordsworth  at  the  age  of  ten  rejoicing  in  the  pos- 
session of  a  new  faculty,  or  rather,  a  new  facility  :f 

Twice  five  years 
Or  less  I  might  have  seen,  'when  first  my  mind 
With  conscious  pleasure  opened  to  the  charm 
Of  words  in  tuneful  order,  found  them  sweet 
For  their  own  sakes,  a  passion  and  a  power. 

This  was  his  introduction  to  the  world  of  art,  and  he 
was  quick  to  recognize  its  identity  with  the  one  already 

*  "  Prelude,"  V.  507.  f  Ibid.,  552. 


177S-1787]    FAREWELL  TO  HAWKSHEAD  53 

familiar  to  his  dauntless  tread.     He  who  has  been  inti- 
mate, he    declared,    with    living   nature,  receives   from 

verse  * 

Knowledge  and  increase  of  enduring  joy 
From  the  great  Nature  that  exists  in  works 
Of  mighty  Poets.     Visionary  power 
Attends  the  motions  of  the  viewless  winds,     , 
Embodied  in  the  mystery  of  words. 

Before  leaving  Hawkshead  Wordsworth  composed  a 
poem  of  many  hundred  lines,  from  which,  as  he  told  a 
friend  in  his  old  age,  most  of  the  thoughts  and  images 
were  to  be  found  dispersed  through  his  other  writings. 
Its  conclusion,  which  suggested  itself  to  him  as  he  and 
his  companions  were  resting  in  a  boat  on  Coniston  Water 
under  a  row  of  magnificent  sycamores,  has  been  pre- 
served, with  some  alterations,  in  the  following  verses: 

Dear  native  regions,  I  foretell, 
From  what  I  feel  at  this  farewell, 
That,  wheresoe'er  my  steps  may  tend, 
And  whensoe'er  my  course  shall  end, 
If  in  that  hour  a  single  tie 
Survive  of  local  sympathy, 
My  soul  will  cast  the  backward  view, 
The  longing  look  alone  on  you. 

Thus,  while  the  Sun  sinks  down  to  rest 
Far  in  the  regions  of  the  west, 
Though  to  the  vale  no  parting  beam 
Be  given,  not  one  memorial  gleam, 
A  lingering  light  he  fondly  throws 
On  the  dear  hills  where  first  he  rose. 

*  "  Prelude,"  V.  593. 


CHAPTER  III 

CAMBRIDGE  AND  THE  NORTH 

In  the  autobiographical  notes  dictated  to  his  nephew, 
Wordsworth  devotes  only  eight  or  nine  sentences  to  his 
career  at  the  University  of  Cambridge.  They  are 
remarkable  as  much  for  the  important  matters  of  which 
they  make  no  mention  as  for  the  trivialities  they  record. 

"  In  the  month  of  October,  1787,  I  was  sent  to  St. 
John's  College,  Cambridge,*  of  which  my  uncle,  Dr. 
Cookson,  had  been  a  fellow.  The  master,  Dr.  Chevallier, 
died  very  soon  after,  and,  according  to  the  custom  of 
that  time,  his  body,  after  being  placed  in  the  coffin,  was 
removed  to  the  hall  of  the  College,  and  the  pall,  spread 
over  the  coffin,  was  stuck  over  by  copies  of  verses, 
English  or  Latin,  the  composition  of  the  students  of 
St.  John's.  My  uncle  seemed  mortified  when  upon 
inquiry  he  learnt  that  none  of  these  verses  were  from 
my  pen,  '  because,'  said  he,  '  it  would  have  been  a  fair 
opportunity  for  distinguishing  yourself.'  I  did  not, 
however,  regret  that  I  had  been  silent  on  this  occasion, 
as  I  felt  no  interest  in  the  deceased  person,  with  whom 
I  had  had  no  intercourse,  and  whom  I  had  never  seen  but 
during  his  walks  in  the  college  grounds. 

"  When  at  school,  I,  with  the  other  boys  of  the  same 
standing,  was  put  upon  reading  the  first  six  books  of 
Euclid,  with  the  exception  of  the  fifth;  and  also  in  alge- 
bra I  learnt  simple  and  quadratic  equations;  and  this 
was  for  me  unlucky,  because  I  had  a  full  twelve-months' 
start  of  the  freshmen  of  my  year,  and  accordingly  got 
into  rather  an  idle  way,  reading  nothing  but  classic 
authors  according  to  my  fancy,  and  Italian  poetry.  My 
Italian   master  was   named    Isola,   and   had   been  well 

*  The  register  at  Cambridge  shows  that  Wordsworth  matriculated  on 
December  17,  1787,  and  graduated  as  a  Bachelor  of  Arts  on  January  21, 
1 79 1.     His  signature  occurs  at  each  entry. 

54 


1787-1791]     TONE  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  55 

acquainted  with  Gray  the  poet.  As  I  took  to  these 
studies  with  much  interest,  he  was  proud  of  the  progress 
I  made.  Under  his  correction  I  translated  The  Vision 
of  Mirza,  and  two  or  three  other  papers  of  the  Spectator 
into  Italian." 

Fortunately,  we  do  not  depend  on  these  meagre  lines 
alone  for  our  knowledge  of  three  very  important  years 
of  the  poet's  life.  "  The  Prelude  "  is  rich  in  comment 
on  Cambridge,  and  interprets  with  deep  scrutiny  its 
effect  upon  him.  He  composed  almost  no  poetry  there. 
A  few  of  the  letters  written  by  his  sister  and  himself 
between  1787  and  1791  exist,  and  are  of  great  interest. 
In  default  of  further  information,  it  has  been  usual  to 
enlarge  upon  his  expressions  of  discontent,  or  rather 
want  of  sympathy,  with  Cambridge,  and  to  throw  the 
blame  upon  the  university,  whose  annals  have  been 
ransacked  to  show  that  it  was  at  that  time  a  place  of 
idleness  and  dissipation.  This  view  has  been  insisted 
upon,  with  some  violence  to  proportion,  even  by  so 
judicious  a  writer  as  M.  Legouis.  Recourse  has  been 
had  to  the  letters  of  the  poet  Gray  to  prove  that  in  his 
time  the  university  was  already  in  a  low  state.  But 
Gray  was  such  a  very  superior  person,  so  refined,  so 
scholarly,  that  his  standard  was  severely  high.  And, 
moreover,  Cambridge  could  not  have  been  entirely  un- 
congenial to  him,  for  he  spent  his  life  there,  though  not 
constrained  to  do  so  by  necessity  or  duty.  Even  if  he 
was  quite  free  from  youthful  petulance  when  he  wrote, 
in  1736,  of  the  people  he  beheld  around  him,  "  I  do  not 
know  one  of  them  who  inspires  me  with  any  ambition 
of  being  like  him,"  there  is  much  force  in  the  comment 
of  his  friend,  William  Mason,  in  1774:  "  There  is  usually 
a  much  greater  fluctuation  of  taste  and  manners  in  an 
academical,  than  a  national  body;  occasioned  (to  use 
a  scholastic  metaphor)  by  that  very  quick  succession 
of  its  component  parts,  which  often  goes  near  to  destroy 
its  personal  identity.  Whatever  may  be  true  of  such  a 
society  at  one  time,  may  be,  and  generally  is,  ten  years 
after,  absolutely  false." 

There  is  no  reason  to  think  that  in    1787,  whatever 


56  CAMBRIDGE  AND  THE  NORTH      [chap,  m 

may  have  been  the  case  fifty  years  earlier,  Cambridge 
was  in  any  respect  less  alert  moralty  than  the  rest  of  the 
country.  Hard  drinking  was  a  national  vice,  which  was 
then,  perhaps,  at  its  worst,  but  it  was  not  more  preva- 
lent at  Cambridge  than  elsewhere.  The  Evangelical 
movement,  of  which  Methodism  was  the  most  powerful 
element,  but  which  affected  Anglicans  and  Noncon- 
formists alike,  had  already  begun  to  soften  the  cruelty 
and  refine  the  grossness  of  the  English  people,  though 
its  effect  was  as  yet  less  perceptible  among  the  upper 
classes  than  among  the  industrial  workers  and  trades- 
people. Cambridge,  with  her  Puritan  traditions,  was 
probably  no  more  hostile  than  Oxford  to  this  unfashion- 
able, yet  gradually  permeating,  change.  Both  uni- 
versities were,  of  course,  jealously  barricaded  against 
the  other  great  influence  of  the  century — its  rationalism. 
Religious  tests,  the  heavy  make-weight  of  many  and 
rich  Church  livings  in  the  gift  of  colleges,  and  sumptuous 
provision  for  the  automatic  maintenance  of  liturgical 
practices,  were  characteristic  of  both.  But  the  natural 
evolution  of  the  whole  of  English  society  was  likewise 
held  in  check  by  these  and  similar  restrictions.  It 
might  be  supposed  that  the  attention  given  at  Cam- 
bridge to  physical  science  would  have  told  in  favour  of 
free-thought,  and  furnished  a  background  for  progressive 
action.  The  method  of  study,  however,  being  mathe- 
matical and  deductive,  rather  than  experimental,  bore 
little  resemblance  to  modern  scientific  processes,  and  was, 
on  the  whole,  favourable  to  the  dogmatic  and  unhistorical 
way  of  teaching  metaphysics,  law,  and  theology.* 

*  As  J.  B.  Mullinger  remarks,  in  his  "History  of  the  University  of 
Cambridge  ":  "  It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  the  tendencies  of  theological 
thought  in  the  University  throughout  the  eighteenth  century  were  to  a 
great  extent  affected  by  the  bias  given  to  its  studies.  They  were  charac- 
terized by  that  spirit  of  '  common  sense  '  and  those  somewhat  mediocre 
aims  which  prevailed  in  society  at  large,  and  also  by  that  dislike  of  en- 
thusiasm and  of  all  beliefs  which  did  not  commend  themselves  to  the 
practical  reason  which  especially  distinguished  the  school  of  Sherlock, 
Edmund  Law,  and  Paley.  Appeals  to  the  emotional  nature  on  the  part 
of  the  divine,  and  the  setting  up  of  too  lofty  ideals  of  life  and  conduct, 
whether  in  religion  or  in  morality,  were  alike  discouraged."  Still,  Cam- 
bridge prided  herself  on  her  interest  in  science,  and  was  possibly  less 
ecclesiastical  than  Oxford,  certainly  less  aristocratic. 


1787-1791]  HERETICS  $7 

During  the  twenty  years  previous  to  Wordsworth's 
matriculation,  Cambridge  had  been  kept  in  lively  com- 
motion by  the  efforts  of  the  Rev.  John  Jebb,  a  fellow  of 
Peterhouse,  to  remove  the  rule  requiring  candidates  for 
the  degree  of  B.A.  to  subscribe  to  the  Thirty-nine 
Articles,  and  to  institute  annual  university  examina- 
tions in  classics  and  mathematics.  He  and  Michael 
Tyson,  of  Corpus  Christi  College,  voted  as  a  minority 
of  two  against  the  address  of  loyalty  to  George  III.,  in 
1769.  Two  years  later  he  defended  the  position  of 
Robert  Tyrwhitt,  of  Jesus  College,  who  argued  in  favour 
of  Unitarianism,  in  the  theological  "  schools  "  or  public 
examinations.  He  preached  before  the  university  and 
in  his  several  country  parishes  against  "  subscription," 
and  with  the  help  of  his  gifted  wife  carried  on  a  war  of 
pamphlets  and  newspaper  articles  against  the  Tory 
party  in  university  affairs.  He  resigned  his  preferment 
in  the  Church  of  England,  left  Cambridge  in  1776, 
became  an  attendant  at  the  Unitarian  Chapel  in  Essex 
Street,  in  London,  studied  and  practised  medicine,  and 
was  a  friend  and  associate  of  Dr.  Priestley,  who  dedi- 
cated to  him  his  "  Doctrine  of  Philosophical  Necessity." 
That  such  a  course  for  a  college  fellow  must  have  pro- 
duced a  long  reverberation  in  Cambridge  will  be  under- 
stood when  it  is  remembered  that,  according  to  Parlia- 
mentary statutes  of  William  III.  and  George  III.,  it 
was  blasphemy  to  deny  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity,  and 
persons  so  doing  were  excluded  from  the  benefit  of  the 
Act  of  Toleration. 

A  fellow  of  Queens'  College,  the  Rev.  Thomas  Fyshe 
Palmer,  might  have  lived  a  comfortable  and  uneventful 
life  amid  the  immunities  of  academic  privilege,  had  not 
he  also  embraced  the  Unitarian  doctrine.  This  one  step 
led  him  to  the  Antipodes,  making  him  a  pioneer  voyager 
among  the  South  Sea  Islands,  and  one  of  the  first  Eng- 
lishmen to  perceive  the  attractions  of  Australia  and  New 
Zealand  for  British  settlers.  He  was  a  convert  of  Dr. 
Priestley,  and,  leaving  Cambridge,  took  charge  in  1783 
of  a  Unitarian  church  at  Montrose  in  Scotland.  Later 
he  formed   Unitarian  societies  in   Edinburgh,  Glasgow, 


7 


58  CAMBRIDGE  AND  THE  NORTH      [chap,  hi 

Arbroath,  and  Forfar.  He  belonged  to  a  political  club 
in  Dundee  called  the  Friends  of  Liberty,  and  in  conse- 
quence of  this  connection  was  arrested  in  1793  on  a 
charge  of  sedition.  Readers  of  Lockhart's  "  Life  of 
Scott  "  will  not  need  to  be  reminded  of  the  public  frenzy 
which  prevailed  in  Scotland  at  that  time,  amounting  to 
terror,  excited  by  the  slightest  suspicion  of  republican- 
ism. Palmer,  though  innocent  of  the  specific  charges 
brought  against  him,  was  sentenced  to  transportation 
for  seven  years,  and  after  terrible  sufferings  in  the  hulks 
at  hard  labour  in  chains,  was  deported  to  Australia. 
At  the  end  of  his  term,  he  and  some  companions,  en- 
deavouring to  return  in  a  vessel  they  had  acquired, 
visited  New  Zealand,  and  were  blown  about  the  archi- 
pelagoes of  the  Pacific  until  they  were  captured  by  the 
Spanish  in  the  Ladrone  Islands,  where  Palmer  died  in 
1802.  His  body  was  brought  by  an  American  ship- 
captain,  three  years  later,  to  Boston,  Massachusetts,  and 
interred  there,  and  a  monument  was  erected  to  his 
memory  on  the  Calton  Hill,  Edinburgh. 

Cambridge  was  more  deeply  stirred  by  the  defection 
of  William  Frend,  whose  prosecution  fell  precisely  in 
the  years  of  Wordsworth's  undergraduate  life,  and  had 
a  great  effect  upon  Coleridge.  He  was  a  student  of 
Christ's  College  when  Paley  was  tutor  there,  but  became 
a  fellow  of  Jesus  College  in  1781  ;  was  ordained  priest  in 
1783;  and  held  a  living  at  Madingley,  a  village  near 
Cambridge,  from  1783  to  1787.  Becoming  a  convert  to 
Unitarianism,  he  published,  in  1 788,  "  An  Address  to  the 
Inhabitants  of  Cambridge  ...  to  turn  from  the  False 
Worship  of  Three  Persons  to  the  Worship  of  the  One 
True  God."  He  had  already  been  labouring  to  do  away 
with  subscription  to  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  as  a  condi- 
tion for  the  degree  of  M.A.  Several  men  afterwards 
distinguished  were  his  pupils,  among  them  Malthus,  the 
economist.  In  September,  1788,  he  was  deprived  of  his 
office  of  tutor.  He  was  not  the  man  to  submit  without 
contest,  for  he  held  his  principles  with  great  tenacity. 
His  appeal  was  rejected  by  the  Bishop  of  Ely  in  Decem- 
ber, 1788,  and  he  left  Cambridge  for  a  time  to  travel  on 


1787-1791]  INTELLECTUAL  FERMENT  59 

the  Continent.  Returning,  he  renewed  the  struggle  to 
maintain  his  academic  standing.  In  March,  1793,  began 
his  prosecution  by  the  authorities,  which  ended  in  his 
banishment  from  the  university  three  years  later.  The 
master  and  fellows  of  Jesus  had  meanwhile  cut  him  off 
from  residence  at  that  college.  He  appealed  against 
both  decisions  unsuccessfully,  but  continued  to  enjoy 
the  emoluments  of  his  fellowship  until  his  marriage,  and 
remained  a  member  of  his  college  and  of  the  university 
senate  until  his  death.  It  is  said  that  the  undergradu- 
ates were,  as  would  be  natural  in  young  men,  favourable 
to  his  cause.  Wordsworth  had  left  the  university 
before  Frend's  trial  in  the  Vice-Chancellor's  Court,  but 
Coleridge  was  much  excited  by  it,  and  his  rooms  were  a 
centre  of  agitation  in  Frend's  behalf.  Wordsworth's 
brother  Christopher,  then  an  orthodox  and  severely 
studious  undergraduate  at  Trinity,  mentioned  the  case 
of  Frend  in  his  diary. 

A  fellow  of  Wordsworth's  own  college,  the  Rev. 
Herbert  Marsh,  in  later  life  conspicuous  for  his  energetic 
and  arbitrary  rule  as  Bishop  of  Peterborough,  was  from 
boyhood  a  confidential  associate  of  Frend.  During 
Wordsworth's  years  of  residence  in  Cambridge  he  lived 
in  Germany,  whence  he  returned  in  1792.  He  refused 
to  testify  against  Frend,  and  in  consequence  of  the 
trouble  which  this  attitude  occasioned  withdrew  once 
more  from  Cambridge  to  Leipzig.  With  his  annotated 
translation  of  J.  D.  Michaelis's  "  Introduction  to  the 
New  Testament  "  he  became  the  first  English  con- 
tributor to  the  modern  critical  study  of  the  Gospels. 

These  instances  are  sufficient  to  show  that  there  was 
considerable  intellectual  ferment  in  Cambridge  during 
Wordsworth's  time  of  residence,  and  shortly  before  it. 
Such  examples  of  independence,  accompanied  by  the 
hazarding  of  livelihood  and  reputation,  could  not  have 
been  given  in  a  place  altogether  stagnant.  They  were 
eddies  from  the  great  world-current  of  rationalism. 
Aberrations  from  the  formal  Cambridge  type  were 
common  enough  in  the  last  decade  of  the  century,  yet 
it  was  only  much  later,  and  rather  grudgingly,  but  still 


60  CAMBRIDGE  AND  THE  NORTH      [chap,  in 

with  less  timidity  than  Oxford  showed,  that  Cambridge 
became  a  progressive  and  really  modern  University, 
hospitable  to  experiment  and  reason.  Still,  it  meant 
much,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  that  she  was  the  reverent 
disciple  of  her  own  great  son,  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  who,  in 
addition  to  the  pre-eminence  in  mathematical  studies 
which  he  conferred  upon  her,  lent  the  sanction  of  his 
name  to  a  remarkable  liberality  in  Biblical  criticism. 
His  fettered  ideas  on  the  subject  of  prophecy  have  too 
much  obscured  this  fact.* 

Cambridge  cannot  be  censured  for  not  binding  more 
closely  to  her  one  of  her  most  distinguished  sons,  Henry 
Cavendish,  who  in  Wordsworth's  day  was  conducting  his 
important  scientific  researches  elsewhere.  He.  was  inde- 
pendent, shy,  eccentric,  and  extremely  rich.  The  poems 
of  Erasmus  Darwin,  another  celebrated  Cambridge 
graduate,  must  have  excited  interest,  at  least,  in  univer- 
sity circles.  The  second  part  of  his  "  Botanic  Garden," 
entitled  "  Loves  of  the  Plants,"  appeared  in  1789,  and 
the  first  part,  "  The  Economy  of  Vegetation,"  in  1792. 

Under  the  energetic  mastership  of  Dr.  Powell,  from 
1765  to  1775,  St.  John's  College  was  thoroughly  re- 
formed. Provision  which  in  our  day  would  be  ludi- 
crously small,  but  which  was  then  considered  notable, 
was  made  for  the  teaching  of  science,  particularly 
astronomy.  The  average  number  of  entering  students 
rose  to  forty.  According  to  Mr.  Mullinger,  in  his  history 
of  the  college,  "  St.  John's  now  gradually  acquired  the 
credit  of  being  the  only  Cambridge  foundation  where  a 
steady  course  of  reading  was  obligatory  on  under- 
graduates," and  nevertheless  "  the  college  was  increas- 

*  As  Andrew  D.  White  says  in  his  "  History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science 
with  Theology  in  Christendom,"  Newton  "  decided  that  the  Pentateuch 
must  have  been  made  up  from  several  books  ;  that  Genesis  was  not 
written  until  the  reign  of  Saul;  that  the  books  of  Kings  and  Chronicles 
were  probably  collected  by  Ezra,  and,  in  a  curious  anticipation  of  modern 
criticism,  that  the  Book  of  Psalms  and  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah  and  Daniel 
were  each  written  by  various  authors  at  various  dates."  It  was  impossible 
that  these  conceptions  and  the  audacious  candour  which  permitted  Newton 
to  express  them  could  suffer  occultation  any  more  than  the  spirit  and 
conclusions  of  his  "  Principia,"  especially  in  a  place  devoted  no  less  to 
theology  than  to  mathematics, 


1787-1791]  COLLEGE  WORK  61 

ingly  resorted  to  by  the  sons  of  the  nobility  and  old 
county  families."  Although  morning  prayers  were  at 
six  o'clock,  the  chapel  became  overcrowded,  the  master 
himself  setting  an  example  of  almost  unbroken  regu- 
larity in  attendance.  Under  his  successor,  Dr.  Cheval- 
lier,  who  was  more  lax,  the  number  of  admissions  in- 
creased to  an  average  of  nearly  fifty  a  year.  Chevallier 
was  followed  by  William  Craven  in  1789.  Throughout 
all  this  time  St.  John's  maintained  the  supremacy  among 
Cambridge  colleges  for  the  number  of  its  students 
who  won  honours  in  mathematics.  This  distinction  more 
than  counterbalanced  the  glory  of  Trinity  in  possessing 
Richard  Porson. 

This  brief  survey  may  suffice  to  show  that  if  Words- 
worth had  been  inclined  to  purely  scholastic  pursuits, 
particularly  in  theology  or  mathematics,  he  need  not 
have  complained  that  the  atmosphere  of  Cambridge  was 
uncongenial.  His  brother  Christopher,  who  followed 
him  from  Hawkshead  in  October,  1791,  certainly  did 
not  find  it  so.  The  latter  was  a  member  of  Trinity 
College.  His  diary,  beginning  October  9,  1793,  is  full 
of  attendance  at  lectures,  conferences  with  tutors,  con- 
versations and  debates  on  intellectual  subjects  with 
fellow-students,  among  whom  was  Coleridge,  exercise 
taken  with  a  view  to  mental  hygiene,  wide  reading,  and 
computation  of  the  number  of  hours  devoted  to  study. 
The  following  are  the  records  of  two  typical  days:* 

"  Thurs.,  17  [Oct.,  1793]. — Rose  to  chapel.  Read  till 
one.  Trigonometry  (plane).  In  the  afternoon  lounged 
in  the  library.  W7alked  with  Reynolds.  Drank  tea  at 
home.  Read  Tweddell's  Panegyric  on  Locke.  Pro- 
ceeded in  my  syllabus  of  Trigonometry.  Read  part  of 
^Eschylus'  Seven  against  Thebes.  Bilsborrow  saw  the 
Letter  in  which  Johnson  offers  Dr.  Darwin  £1,000  for 
his  'Acoovofiia,  without  having  ever  seen  it.  Dr.  D.  con- 
fesses it  in  his  Botanic  Garden,  etc.;  he  propounds  many 
opinions  which  he  does  not  himself  believe.  Hayley, 
Bilsborrow  says,  is  employed  upon  a  life  of  Milton." 

'  Wednesday,    23. — Chapel.      A     Latin     declamation 
brought  to  me.     All  morning  spent  in  choosing  a  subject, 

*  Christopher  Wordsworth:  "Social  Life  at  the  English  Universities  in 
he  Eighteenth  Century." 


62  CAMBRIDGE  AND  THE  NORTH      [chap,  m 

finding   my   opponent,   going   to    the   Dean,   procuring 
books,  etc." 

He  was  attending  Wollaston's  lectures  and  reading 
Euclid,  plane  and  spherical  trigonometry,  mechanics, 
astronomy,  Locke,  ^Eschylus,  Sophocles,  and  Euripides, 
not  to  mention  Boswell's  "  Johnson,"  The  Spectator, 
and  the  early  poetical  ventures  of  his  brother  and  of 
Coleridge. 

Christopher  Wordsworth  manifested  even  in  his  youth 
the  qualities  that  made  him  ultimately  a  successful 
Churchman  and  a  great  academic  figure.  He  was 
naturally  fond  of  reading,  and  not  averse  from  hard  study 
for  its  own  sake  or  for  the  sake  of  distinction.  He  was 
docile  and  orthodox,  and  his  social  inclinations  were 
strong.  The  ambitions  which  appear  to  have  been  the 
mainspring  of  his  life  were  decidedly  practical.  It  is 
hardly  necessary  to  say  that  young  men  of  this  type 
are  the  round  pegs  for  whom  the  round  holes  of  prefer- 
ment are  intended.  If  his  brother  had  been  like  him, 
or,  on  the  other  hand,  had  been  content  to  enjoy  the 
easy  tasks  required  and  the  harmless  pleasures  tolerated 
by  the  college  and  university  authorities,  we  should 
have  heard  no  complaint.  But  he  asked  of  Cambridge 
what  it  is  to  be  feared  no  university  ever  gave  continu- 
ously and  as  a  matter  of  course — namely,  a  great  stimu- 
lus to  the  emotions,  coinciding  with  a  steady  advance  in 
knowledge  and  intellectual  strength. 

A  still  more  instructive  inference  from  these  glimpses 
of  Cambridge  life  is  that  the  poet  may  have  been  imbued 
during  his  residence  at  the  university  with  the  radical 
opinions  in  religion  and  politics  for  which  it  has  been 
commonly  supposed  that  his  sojourn  in  France  was  re- 
sponsible. He  could  hardly  have  escaped  the  influence 
which  was  to  be,  within  a  year  or  two,  very  effective 
with  Coleridge,  who,  without  going  to  France,  became 
as  much  a  radical  as  Wordsworth.  It  was  in  part,  no 
doubt,  Wordsworth's  sympathy  with  this  element  of 
Cambridge  life,  an  element  discountenanced  by  the 
authorities  and  practically  ineffective,  that  kept  him 
from  feeling  at  home.     If  we  could  see  "  The  Prelude  " 


1 787-1791]  INDEPENDENT  SPIRIT  63 

precisely  as  he  first  dictated  it,  perhaps  we  should  find 
this  reason  explicitly  set  forth.  All  that  is  certain,  how- 
ever, is  that  he  held  himself  quietly  aloof.  He  had  "4"*-^ 
grown  up  to  be  his  own  judge  and  master.  Since  his 
father's  death  he  had  been  restrained  by  no  authority 
save  the  mild  rules  of  Hawkshead.  He  had  lived  much 
alone  and  out  of  doors,  subject  to  a  grander  discipline, 
and  seeking  nobler  rewards  than  those  of  any  school. 
His  heart,  which  had  expanded  generously,  as  we  have 
seen,  in  the  society  of  other  boys  and  of  simple  rustics, 
closed  upon  its  tender  secrets  in  the  unaccustomed  air 
of  a  larger  place.  An  uneasy  wonder,  not  real  admira- 
tion, took  the  place  of  those  deep  satisfactions,  those 
unquestioning  acceptances,  that  filled  his  mind  among 
his  native  mountains.  He  half  regretted,  half  cherished, 
the  consciousness  of  being  different  from  the  young  men 
about  him,  and  of  being  out  of  sympathy  with  the  spirit 
of  the  university.  It  was  not  merely  disdain  that 
taught  him  to  feel  he 

was  not  for  that  hour, 
Nor  for  that  place. 

Wordsworth's  great  autobiographical  poem,  which 
towards  the  close  of  the  second  book  becomes  deeper 
and  slower  in  its  movement,  bursts  at  the  opening  of 
the  third  into  a  rapid  narrative,  and  streams  along  with 
lively  interest.  He  records  with  Chaucerian  simplicity  -^—  1 
his  arrival  on  the  coach,  the  aspect  of  the  many-towered 
town,  his  fresh  sensations,  his  important  visits  to  tutor 
and  tailor,  and  the  welcome  given  him  by  old  Hawkshead 
boys,  "  now  hung  round  with  honour  and  importance  " : 

I  was  the  Dreamer,  they  the  Dream ;   I  roamed 

Delighted  through  the  motley  spectacle; 

Gowns  grave,  or  gaudy,  doctors,  students,  streets, 

Courts,  cloisters,  flocks  of  churches,  gateways,  towers : 

Migration  strange  for  a  stripling  of  the  hills, 

A  northern  villager.* 

He  occupied  rooms,  since  demolished,  in  the  beautiful 
First  Court,  which  were  over  the  kitchens,  and  looked 

*  "  Prelude,"  III.  29. 


64  CAMBRIDGE  AND  THE  NORTH      [chap,  in 

out  upon  the  chapel  of  Trinity.       From  his  bedroom 

window  he 

could  behold 
The  antechapel  where  the  statue  stood 
Of  Newton  with  his  prism  and  silent  face, 
The  marble  index  of  a  mind  for  ever 
Voyaging  through  strange  seas  of  Thought,  alone.* 

The  routine  of  lectures  and  examinations  failed  from 
the  very  first  to  awaken  his  interest.  He  was  untouched 
by  the  excessive  hopes,  small  jealousies,  and  triumphs, 
of  student  life.  Yet  he  was  disturbed  at  times  by 
prudent  thoughts  about  his  future  worldly  maintenance, 
which  depressed  him  amid  the  crowd  of  eager  aspirants. 
And  then  he  did  for  himself  what  he  has  since  done  for 
thousands — he  strengthened  his  heart  by  communing 
with  nature.  It  is  a  hackneyed  phrase,  but  to  him 
it  represented  a  most  real  and  important  experi- 
ence. As  he  paced  along  the  level  fields  of  Cambridge- 
shire, far  from  the  grander  scenes  that  had  inspired 
his  boyhood,  he  felt  even  there  an  uplifting  of  his  mind 
and  a  sense  that  all  was  well — felt  what  independent 
solaces  were  his 

To  mitigate  the  injurious  sway  of  place 
Or  circumstance. 

He  looked  for  universal  things,  called  on  them  to  be  his 
teachers,  gave  a  moral  life  even  to  the  loose  stones  that 
covered  the  highway,  "  saw  them  feel,  or  linked  them 
to  some  feeling."     "  The  great  mass,"  he  says, 

Lay  bedded  in  a  quickened  soul,  and  all 
That  I  beheld  respired  with  inward  meaning. 

This  first  reaction  against  human  conventions,  in- 
cluding the  standards  of  university  excellence,  carried 
him  to  a  pitch  of  conscious  elevation  probably  never 
reached  by  him  before.  He  flung  himself  upon  nature, 
fearing  that  she  might  not  be  the  same  in  these  less 
lovely  regions,  and  found  her  ready  as  ever  to  soothe 
and  exalt.     He  enjoyed  moments  of  ecstasy — moments 

*  "  Prelude,"  III.  59. 


1787-1791]         A  LONELY  FRESHMAN  65 

when  the  currents  from  nature's  life  flowed  unob- 
structed through  the  soul  :* 

whate'er  of  Terror  or  of  Love 
Or  Beauty,  Nature's  daily  face  put  on 
From  transitory  passion,  unto  this 
I  was  as  sensitive  as  waters  are 
To  the  sky's  influence  in  a  kindred  mood 
Of  passion ;  was  obedient  as  a  lute 
That  waits  upon  the  touches  of  the  wind. 

He  could  then  return  and  look  unabashed  at  the 
memorials  of  intellectual  greatness  that  admonished 
him  from  their  honourable  niches  in  college  gateways 
or  their  gilded  frames  in  college  halls. 

What  wonder  if  he  held  himself  somewhat  apart  from 
his  companions  !  It  was  not  easy  for  him  to  come  down 
to  their  level,  and  evidently  in  his  first  year  he  acted 
strangely.  They  thought  him  mad,  and  so,  he  says,  he 
was  indeed,! 

If  prophecy  be  madness ;  if  things  viewed 
By  poets  in  old  time,  or  higher  up 
By  the  first  men,  earth's  first  inhabitants, 
May  in  these  tutored  days  no  more  be  seen 
With  undi6ordered  sight. 

But  as  proof  that  his  vision  of  Oneness  was  no  blear 
illusion,  he  asserts  that  at  this  time  his  analytic  powers 
were  keen  and  active.  He  perceived  not  only  simili- 
tudes, but  differences.  He  might  have  said,  with 
William  Blake,  "  every  Minute  Particular  is  holy." 
He  is  anxious  to  avert  the  charge  that  he  was  too 
attentive  to  generalities,  and  therefore  incapable  of 
that  direct  sense  of  the  actual  and  individual  which  is 
common  to  men.  He  is  concerned  to  show  that  in  so 
far,  at  least,  he  was  not  unaffected  by  the  logical  severity 
which  was  supposed  to  dominate  Cambridge  thought, 
and  so  he  continues : 

It  was  no  madness,  for  the  bodily  eye 
Amid  my  strongest  workings  evermore 
Wa6  searching  out  the  lines  of  difference 
As  they  lie  hid  in  all  external  forms, 

*   "  Prelude,"  III.  133.  f  Ibid.,  150. 

>"  .      5 


\ 


66  CAMBRIDGE  AND  THE  NORTH      [chap,  m 

Near  or  remote,  minute  or  vast;  an  eye 

Which,  from  a  tree,  a  stone,  a  withered  leaf, 

To  the  broad  ocean  and  the  azure  heavens 

Spangled  with  kindred  multitudes  of  stars, 

Could  find  no  surface  where  its  power  might  sleep ; 

Which  spake  perpetual  logic  to  my  soul, 

And  by  an  unrelenting  agency 

Did  bind  my  feelings  even  as  in  a  chain. 

Yet  in  an  apostrophe  to  Coleridge,*  with  whom,  no 
ydoubt,rhe  had  often  discussed  the  nature  of  inspiration, 
he  admits  that  this  eminence  to  which  he  occasionally 
attained  could  not  be  held.  It  was  the  glory  of  his  youth, 
it  was  "  genius,  power,  creation,  divinity  itself."  And 
in  lines  which  none  but  he  could  have  written,  lines  that 
are  an  epitome  of  his  "  Ode  on  the  Intimations  of  Im- 
mortality from   Recollections  of  Early  Childhood,"  he 

cries 

O  Heavens !  how  awful  is  the  might  of  souls. 
And  what  they  do  within  themselves  while  yet 
The  yoke  of  earth  is  new  to  them  ! 

But  the  subject,  he  declares,  is  beyond  his  power  of 
expression ;  we  all  have  points  within  our  souls  where 
our  experiences  are  unique ;  and  all  his  efforts  are  but 

Breathings  for  incommunicable  powers 

—  that  is,  panting  exertions  to  express  what  every  human 
being  is  doomed  to  keep  to  himself.  Yet  he  is  not  dis- 
heartened by  his  failure,  for  every  man  has  "  known  his 
god-like  hours,"  and  can  fill  the  gap  out  of  his  own 
inheritance. 

Gradually  he  adapted  himself  more  to  the  ideals  of  the 
place,  and  began  to  take  part  in  its  enjoyments.  His 
heart,  he  tells  us,  was  social,  and  if  a  throng  was  near, 
that  way  he  inclined.  He  welcomed  new  acquaintances, 
made  friends,  sauntered,  talked,  drifted  about  the 
streets  and  walks,  read  lazily  in  trivial  books,  rode  horse- 
back, and  sailed  boisterously  on  the  river.  With  no 
one  did  he  share  his  deeper  thoughts.  He  scarcely  gave 
them  definite  form  in  his  own  mind,  and  made  no  attempt 

*  "  Prelude,"  III.  167. 


J^ 


1787-1791]     REVERENCE  FOR  GREATNESS  67 

to  express  them  in  writing.  '  Now  and  then  he  forced 
himself  to  work  at  the  appointed  tasks,  and  felt  a  faint 
hope  of  success.  We  must  not  suppose  that  he  was 
really  as  neglectful  of  classical  studies  as  The  Prelude  " 
might  lead  us  to  think.  In  later  life  he  showed  evidence 
of  fairly  wide  and  accurate  reading  in  classical  authors, 
and  prepared  his  son  for  college.  And  yet,  for  him,  as 
indeed  for  many  minds,  there  could  be  no  complete 
absorption  in  work  unless  imagination  led  the  way. 
And  imagination,  he  says,  slept,  though  not  utterly. 
Had  he  been  more  mature  in  scholarship,  or  more  ex- 
perienced, he  might  have  been  moved,  as  Goethe  was 
moved,  by  the  contrast  between  active  life  and  the 
systems  of  speculative  idealism  which  were  echoing  on 
their  way  from  Berkeley  to  Kant.  Or  he  might  have 
been  thus  early  aroused,  as  Lessing  and  Voltaire  were 
aroused,  to  shoulder  his  responsibility  in  the  warfare 
between  rationalism  and  mysticism.  It  is  to  sceptical 
impulses,  perhaps,  that  he  refers  when  he  mentions 
with  annoyance* 

a  treasonable  growth 

Of  indecisive  judgments,  that  impaired 

And  shook  the  mind's  simplicity. 

The  English  universities  in  his  day  were  not,  in  a 
broad  sense,  national  institutions.  They  were  organs  of 
the  Church  of  England.  Much  of  their  mediaeval  char- 
acter as  groups  of  religious  houses  still  survived.  The 
clergy  were  conspicuous  in  almost  all  high  academic 
posts,  and  a  steady  circulation  between  fellowships  and 
church  livings  in  the  gift  of  colleges  was  maintained 
In  academic  groups  religious  and  political  doubt  were 
treated  with  the  disgust  due  to  filial  ingratitude.  Words- 
worth, if  he  doubted,  was  too  simple-hearted  to  resent 
this  feeling  and  to  realize  its  impertinence. 

After  all,  the  most  memorable  pages  of  the  third  book 
of  "  The  Prelude  "  are  those  which  recall  the  deep  floods 
of  reverence  that  flowed  into  the  young  poet's  soul  when 
he  remembered  his  illustrious  predecessors,  Newton 
Chaucer,  Spenser,  Milton.     In  those  precincts  he  could 

*   "  Prelude,"  III.  211. 


68  CAMBRIDGE  AND  THE  NORTH      [chap,  in 


* 


not  move  and  sleep  and  wake  untouched  by  their  en 
nobling  influence.    "  I  could  not  lightly  pass,"  he  says, 

Through  the  same  gateways,  sleep  where  they  had  slept, 
Wake  where  they  waked,  range  that  inclosure  old, 
That  garden  of  great  intellects,  undisturbed. 

In  the  neighbouring  village  of  Trumpington  he  "  laughed 
with  Chaucer  in  the  hawthorn  shade."  In  lines  that 
exquisitely  imitate  the  music  of  his  great  Brother, 
Englishman,  and  Friend,  he  records  how  he  hailed 

Sweet  Spenser,  moving  through  his  clouded  heaven 
With  the  moon's  beauty  and  the  moon's  soft  pace. 

Milton,  "  soul  awful,"  he  says, 

Familiarly,  and  in  his  scholar's  dress 
Bounding  before  me,  yet  a  stripling  youth — 
A  boy,  no  better,  with  his  rosy  cheeks 
Angelical,  keen  eye,  courageous  look, 
And  conscious  step  of  purity  and  pride. 

One  of  his  acquaintances  occupied  Milton's  rooms  in 
Christ's  College,  and  there,  on  a  dark  winter  evening, 
betrayed  by  enthusiasm,  he  poured  out  libations  to  his 
memory, 

till  pride 
And  gratitude  grew  dizzy  in  a  brain 
Never  excited  by  the  fumes  of  wine 
Before  that  hour,  or  since, 

and  in  fear  of  being  too  late  for  evening  prayers  he  ran 
ostrich-like  through  the  streets,  with  flowing  gown,  and, 
shouldering  up  his  surplice  with  careless  ostentation,  hur- 
ried through  the  antechapel  of  St.  John's.f 

Those  mighty  dead  roused  his  enthusiasm,  but  through 
his  own  fault,  as  he  admits,  failed  to  stir  in  him 

A  fervent  love  of  rigorous  discipline. 

What  he  missed  was  some  compelling  force  which  should 
break  the  light  composure  of  his  easy  spirits  and  bend 
him  to  a  task  demanding  all  his  efforts.  He  did  not 
slight  his  books,  but  he  knew  full  well  that  he  possessed 

*  "  Prelude,"  III.  261.  j  Ibid.,  275-321. 


1767-1791]       THE  IDEAL  UNIVERSITY  69 

powers  that  might  have  been  exerted  to  great  purpose 
had  the  passion  for  study  been  awakened  in  him.  Other 
passions  already  filled  his  mind,  passions  engendered  by 
crystalline  rivers  and  solemn  heights,  lovely  forms  that 
left  less  space  for  learning's  soberer  visions. 

Out  of  these  regrets  he  framed,  later,  an  ideal  of  a 
place  of  learning  "  whose  studious  aspect  "  should  have 
bent  him  down  "  to  instantaneous  service,"  a  place 
where  the  gregarious  instincts  should  be  turned  to  the 
highest  account  in  a  generous  co-operation,  where  know- 
ledge should  be  prized  for  its  own  sake,  where  youth, 
under  the  impulse  of  a  truly  religious  zeal,  should  stand 
abashed* 

Before  antiquity  and  steadfast  truth 
And  strong  book-mindedness;  and  over  all 
A  healthy  sound  simplicity  should  reign, 
A  seemly  plainness,  name  it  what  you  will, 
Republican  or  pious. 

He  fancied  that  the  universities  possessed  such  a  char- 
acter in  the  Renaissance,! 

When  all  who  dwelt  within  these  famous  walls 
Led  in  abstemiousness  a  studious  life, 

when  princes  froze  at  matins  and  peasants'  sons  begged 
their  way  from  remote  villages,  journeying  to  these 
centres  of  learning  "  with  ponderous  folios  in  their 
hands,"  and  illustrious  scholars, 

Lovers  of  truth,  by  penury  constrained, 
Bucer,  Erasmus,  or  Melancthon,  read 
Before  the  doors  or  windows  of  their  cells 
By  moonshine  through  mere  lack  of  taper  light. 

The  glorious  dream  is  by  no  means  vain.  It  may  yet 
be  realized,  and  Wordsworth  was  right  in  thinking  that 
poverty,  compulsory  or  voluntary,  with  the  plainness 
that  poverty  entails,  is  one  of  the  first  conditions  of  its 
fulfilment.  The  religion  of  such  a  place,  upon  which 
it  will  depend  wholly  for  dignity,  grace,  integrity,  and 
inspiration,  must,  however,  be  a  faith  in  those  things 

*  "  Prelude,"  III.  394.  f  Ibid.,  446-478. 


70  CAMBRIDGE  AND  THE  NORTH      [chap,  hi 

which  are  recognized  by  the  best  spirits  of  the  times  as 
the  supremely  good  things.  A  mediaeval  or  a  seven- 
teenth-century type  of  religion  will  not  vivify  a  modern 
university.  Nowhere  is  there  a  more  disastrous  effect 
on  morality  than  in  a  college  or  school  whose  real  religion 
does  not  heartily  support  its  ceremonial  of  worship.  In 
a  vein  of  fervent  satire  Wordsworth  comments  on  the 
practice  of  compulsory  chapel  services,  which  the  younger 
members  of  his  college  attended  unwillingly  and  the 
older  members  very  irregularly  or  not  at  all.  "  Be 
wise,"  he  says,* 

Ye  Presidents  and  Deans,  and,  till  the  spirit 
Of  ancient  times  revive,  and  youth  be  trained 
At  home  in  pious  service,  to  your  bells 
Give  seasonable  rest,  for  'tis  a  sound 
Hollow  as  ever  vexed  the  tranquil  air; 
And  your  officious  doings  bring  disgrace 
On  the  plain  steeples  of  our  English  Church, 
Whose  worship,  'mid  remotest  village  trees, 
Suffers  for  this. 

All  authority,  he  held,  was  weakened  by  the  irrev- 
erence produced  by  this  forced  attendance,  and 
even  Science  was  "  smitten  thence  with  an  unnatural 
taint." 

He  was  impatient,  too,  of  the  narrow  range  of  scholastic 
studies.  Modern  subjects  attracted  him,  and  he  spent 
much  time  reading  in  branches  not  recognized  as  part  of 
the  official  course.  He  learned  Italian.  His  private  tutor, 
Agostino  Isola,  a  native  of  Milan,  whence  he  had  fled 
for  political  reasons,  had  taught  Gray  in  his  time. 
Isola's  granddaughter,  Emma,  was  adopted,  or  at  least 
brought  up  in  part,  by  Charles  and  Mary  Lamb.  Words- 
worth was  never  a  discursive  reader.  More  intense 
study  would  have  suited  him  better,  and  he  does  indeed 
mention,  with  minute  and  curious  detail,  the  way  in 
which  geometry  strengthened  and  elevated  his  mind. 
He  was  wont  to  meditate  on  the  relations  its  abstrac- 
tions bear  as  between  man's  intellect  on  the  one  hand, 

*   "  Prelude,"  III.  409. 


1787-1791]  AMUSEMENTS  71 

and  the  starry  systems  on  the  other.  From  the  same 
source  he  says  he  drew* 

A  pleasure  quiet  and  profound,  a  sense 
Of  permanent  and  universal  sway, 

and  thus  a  recognition  of  God,  which  comforted  him 
with  transcendent  peace.  He  craved  discipline  and 
insight,  not  experience,  and  so,  in  the  large  part  of  "  The 
Prelude  "  devoted  to  his  education,  few  books — the 
doors  to  experience — are  mentioned,  even  in  the  canto 
entitled  "  Books."  It  is  significant,  too,  that  almost  the 
only  books  he  mentions  in  connection  with  this  time — 
and  with  great  delight — -are  "  The  Arabian  Nights  " 
and  "  Don  Quixote,"  which  pleased  him,  evidently,  by 
their  extravagance  and  fancifulness,  more  than  for  any 
outlook  on  reality  they  offered.  His  very  considerable 
acquaintance  with  books  of  travel  was  gained  later, 
perhaps  as  a  relief  from  too  much  concentration,  and 
because  he  had,  as  he  said,  a  passion  for  wandering. 

After  the  manner  of  undergraduates,  he  derived  much 
amusement  from  the  oddities  of  his  seniors.  "  Rich 
pastime,"  he  found  it,  to  observe  "  the  grave  Elders, 
men  unscoured,  grotesque  in  character,"  with  so  little 
to  do  that  they  fell  into  random  and  strange  practices. 
The  employment  of  what  is  termed  "  academic  leisure  " 
creates  bewilderment  in  the  young.  This  is  especially 
the  case  when  apparent  idleness  is  not  disconnected 
with  academic  distinction.  Wordsworth  was  perhaps 
more  tender  than  his  fellow-students  in  his  criticism  of 
the  old  dons,  for  he  remembered  the  aged  shepherds  of 
the  hills,  and  found  that,  though  different  in  expression, 
the  eccentricities  of  age  were  essentially  the  same  in 
Cambridge  as  in  Hawkshead.  But  he  scourges  the 
system  which  encouraged  a  rapid  decline  into  useless- 
ness ;  and  thinking  of  the  "  old  humourists  "  who  sat  at 
the  college  high  tables  in  his  youth,  he  bursts  into  an 
indignant  passage. f 

At  the  end  of  his  first  college  year  he  had  no  home  to 
go  to,  and  turned  eagerly  towards  Hawkshead.     His  old 

*   "  Prelude,"  VI.  130.  f   "  Ibid.,"  III.  591-608. 


72  CAMBRIDGE  AND  THE  NORTH      [chap,  ra 

dame  welcomed  him  with  almost  a  mother's  pride.  He 
re-entered  her  cottage  with  the  assurance  of  a  son. 
Language  failed  him  in  which  to  express  the  complex 
feelings  that  filled  his  heart  on  this  occasion,  as  he 
recognized  a  hundred  once  familiar  objects,  beholding 
everything  in  duplicate,  its  present  aspect  mingling 
strangely  with  its  remembered  form.  The  richest  part 
of  this  experience  is  seeing  one's  old  self  peeping  unex- 
pectedly at  its  new  playfellow.  No  one  can  communi- 
cate to  anyone  else  more  than  the  barest  outline  of  what 
the  first  home-coming  after  a  long  absence  means  to  an 
imaginative  person,  and  although  the  fourth  book  of 
"  The  Prelude  "  is  probably  the  most  successful  attempt 
to  do  so  ever  made,  the  poet  asks  as  in  despair : 

Why  should  I  speak  of  what  a  thousand  hearts 
Have  felt,  and  every  man  alive  can  guess  ? 

He  greeted  the  rooms,  the  court,  the  garden  of  Dame 
Tyson's  dwelling,  and  the  unruly  brook  boxed  up  in  its 
paved  channel,  which  was  an  emblem  of  his  own  moun- 
tain origin  and  recent  restraint.  He  hailed  old  friends 
at  their  work,  or  on  the  roads,  or  across  fields.  He  felt 
embarrassed  among  his  old  schoolmates  because  of  his 
fashionable  dress.  He  took  his  place  with  delight  at 
the  domestic  table,  and,  after  a  day  of  many  sensations, 
laid  him  down  in  the  lowly  accustomed  bed  whence  he 
"  had  heard  the  wind  roar  and  the  rain  beat  hard,"  and 
oft 

Had  lain  awake  on  summer  nights  to  watch 

The  moon  in  splendour  couched  among  the  leaves 

Of  a  tall  ash,  that  near  our  cottage  stood ; 

Had  watched  her  with  fixed  eyes  while  to  and  fro 

In  the  dark  summit  of  the  waving  tree 

She  rocked  with  every  impulse  of  the  breeze.* 

After  this  first  riot  of  boyish  spirits  the  ferment  of 
poetry  revived  in  him,  and,  accompanied  by  an  old 
favourite,  a  rough  hill  terrier,  he  wandered  in  the 
country,  "  harassed  with  the  toil  of  verse,"  rushing 
forward   boyishly   to   pat   the   dog   when   some   lovely 

*  "  Prelude,"  IV.  87. 


£    -3 

<       E 
> 


i788]  FIRST  LONG  VACATION  73 

image  rose  full-formed  in  the  song,  and  putting  on  the 
air  of  a  mere  saunterer  if  the  animal  gave  warning  of 
approaching  passengers.  By  contrast  with  the  fens  of 
Cambridgeshire,  the  lakes  and  hills  seemed  more  beauti- 
ful than  ever.  That  he  had  felt  their  beauty  a  year 
before,  when  as  yet  he  had  never  lived  outside  the  circle 
of  their  power,  is  proof  of  his  inborn  distinction  of  spirit, 
for  not  every  son  of  the  mountains  is  aware  of  the 
majesty  that  surrounds  him.  Now  to  this  original 
realization  was  added  the  result  of  comparison.  He 
recognized  the  peculiar  appeal  of  these  old  haunts  which 
had  once  seemed  a  whole  world  to  him.  He  felt,  with 
pensive  sympathy,  that  even  this  beauty  must  be  -f- 
transient.* 

With  clearer  knowledge  than  of  old,  he  was  now  able 
to  read,  also,  the  characters  of  his  former  companions, 
the  dalesmen  and  their  children.  He  found  a  freshness 
in  human  life.  He  observed  with  increased  respect  the 
daily  occupations  which  he  really  loved.  They  had 
gained  dignity  in  the  eyes  of  one  who  had  been  puzzling 
vainly  over  the  mystery  of  endowed  leisure.  The 
peaceful  scene, 

Changed  like  a  garden  in  the  heat  of  spring 
After  an  eight  days'  absence, 

filled  him  with  surprise.  Many  things  which  before  had 
seemed  natural  now  began  to  take  their  places  in  the 
order  of  conventional  society.  He  saw  with  his  own 
unclouded  eye  of  childhood,  and  at  the  same  time  with 
the  eye  of  the  world.  In  this  first  long  vacation  many 
a  day  was 

Spent  in  a  round  of  strenuous  idleness. 

He  flung  himself  into  the  innocent  gaieties  of  country 
life,  "  feast,  and  dance,  and  public  revelry."  This 
course  he  afterwards,  taking  himself  strictly  to  task, 
regretted.  Like  Rousseau,  Wordsworth  believed  that 
the  development  of  the  child  should  be  held  back  until 
adolescence,  and  that  then,  in  a  few  crowded  years  or 

*  "  Prelude,"  IV.  231-247. 


U^ 


74  CAMBRIDGE  AND  THE  NORTH      [chap,  in 

even  months, the  reasoning  powers  should  be  subjected  to 
rigorous  discipline,  the  imagination  enriched,  and  pur- 
poses ennobled.  He  therefore  looked  back  with  some 
disapproval  on  the  waste  of  many  golden  hours  at  that 
important  time.  For,  he  declared,  except  some  casual 
knowledge  of  character  or  life,  he  gained  no  real  experi- 
ence ■* 

Far  better  had  it  been  to  exalt  the  mind 

By  solitary  study,  to  uphold 

Intense  desire  through  meditative  peace. 

Yet  one  hour  of  profound  insight  set  the  balance  straight. 
j^,  iL  It  was  the  hour  of  his  baptism  with  the  fire  of  poesy, 
an  hour  memorable  in  his  life  and  in  the  history  of 
literature.  It  was  the  supreme  religious  moment  of  his 
life,  the  point  when  solitude  closed  in  on  all  sides  of  him, 
and  his  being  stood  cut  off  for  the  first  time  from  every 
other  human  soul,  distinct  in  conscious  self-hood;  the 
point,  too,  when  by  this  very  isolation  his  soul  lay  bare 
to  divine  influence  and  he  communed  with  God,  sub- 
missive to  the  heavenly  voice.  He  then  accepted — he 
could  not  help  accepting — the  call  of  a  power  beyond  his 
control.  And  from  that  time  his  faculties  were  re- 
leased. The  incident  does  not  admit  of  paraphrase, 
and  must  be  read  in  his  own  words, f  the  momentous 
conclusion  being: 

bond  unknown  to  me 

Was  given,  that  I  should  be,  else  sinning  greatly, 

A  dedicated  Spirit. 

As  Mr.  Thomas  Hutchinson  has  remarked, %  Words- 
worth may  at  this  time  have  spent  a  month  with  his 
cousin,  Mrs.  Barker,  at  the  village  of  Rampside,  on  the 
Lancashire  coast,  opposite  Peel  Castle,  for  in  his  "  Elegiac 
Stanzas  suggested  by  a  Picture  of  Peele  Castle,"  com- 
posed in  1805,  he  sings: 

I  was  thy  neighbour  once,  thou  rugged  Pile  ! 
Four  summer  weeks  I  dwelt  in  sight  of  thee; 

and  at  no  other  period  of  his  life  could  this  have  been 
the  case,  except,  perhaps,  the  summer  of  1794. 

*   "  Prelude,"  IV.  304.  f  Ibid.,    3°9-338- 

%  Oxford  edition  of  Wordsworth's  "  Poetical  Works,"  p.  xxvi. 


1788]  DOROTHY'S  LETTERS  75 

There  is  nothing  in  "  The  Prelude  "  or  in  any  pub- 
lished letters  of  the  Wordsworth  family  to  indicate  that 
the  young  collegian  spent  any  part  of  this  first  long 
vacation  with  his  sister,  or  elsewhere  than  at  Hawkshead. 
But  it  is,  of  course,  extremely  probable  that  he  visited 
her  at  Penrith,  to  which  his  good  long  legs  would  easily 
carry  him  in  a  day.  He  had  been  with  her  before  going 
to  Cambridge,  in  October,  1787.  She  had  bravely 
helped  to  get  him  ready  for  the  journey,  and  then  fallen 
back  in  mute  despair  into  a  lonely  life.  She  was  made 
to  feel  her  dependence  upon  her  grandparents  and  her 
uncle  Christopher.  Her  duties  in  the  mercer  shop  were 
uncongenial,  and  were  not  lightened  by  much  sympathy. 
Her  grandmother's  eye  was  on  her  there,  and  she  could 
not  indulge  her  love  of  reading.  The  grandfather  was 
ill  and  cross.  There  was  not  in  all  England  a  spirit 
naturally  more  gladsome  than  Dorothy  Wordsworth's, 
nor  a  constitution  that  called  so  eagerly  as  hers  did  for 
space  and  exercise  and  change.  Two  passions  possessed 
her  wholly — love  of  nature  and  love  of  her  brothers ; 
and  at  sixteen  she  was  cut  off  from  both  nature  and  her 
brothers.  Her  mobile  apprehension  had  to  accommo- 
date its  pace  to  the  torpid  current  of  events  in  a  small 
market-town.  Her  tameless  enthusiasm  was  checked 
by  the  disapproval  of  a  commonplace  family.  There 
exist  two  letters  which  she  wrote  from  Penrith  to  a  girl 
friend,  Jane  Pollard,  of  Halifax,  before  William  went  to 
Cambridge.  They  are  remarkable  productions  for  a 
child  of  fifteen.  The  handwriting  is  that  of  a  person 
accustomed  to  rapid  composition.  It  is  neither  un- 
formed., nor  "  commercial."  The  style  is  singularly 
correct,  and  flexible  enough  to  express  a  wide  range  of 
anger,  affection,  and  playfulness.  The  words  flow  as 
from  a  pent-up  fountain.  Never  was  there  a  heart 
more  eager  to  love.  It  is  worth  remarking,  as  a  dis- 
tinguishing trait  and  a  noble  one,  that,  while  craving  a 
chance  to  bestow  her  love,  she  expresses  little  anxiety 
about  being  loved.  Possibly  some  abatement  from 
what  she  writes  about  her  gloom  and  its  causes  should  be 
made  on  the  ground  that  she  takes  an  artistic  pleasure 


76  CAMBRIDGE  AND  THE  NORTH      [chap,  m 

in  describing  them.  In  the  first  letter,  which  is  dated 
merely  "  Sunday  evening,"  but  apparently  was  written 
at  Penrith  in  the  summer  of  1787,  excusing  herself  for 
negligence,  she  says  :* 

"  On  Thursday  night  I  began  writing,  but  my  brother 
William  was  sitting  by  me,  and  I  could  not  help  talking 
with  him  till  it  was  too  late  to  finish.  ...  I  might  per- 
haps have  employed  an  hour  or  two  in  writing  to  you, 
but  I  have  so  few,  so  very  few,  to  pass  with  my  brothers 
that  I  could  not  leave  them.  You  know  how  happy  I 
am  in  their  company.  I  do  not  now  want  a  friend  who 
will  share  with  me  my  distresses.  I  do  not  now  pass  half 
my  time  alone.  I  can  bear  the  ill-nature  of  all  my 
relations,  for  the  affection  of  my  brothers  consoles  me  in 
all  my  griefs ;  but  how  soon,  alas  !  shall  I  be  deprived 
of  this  consolation,  and  how  soon  shall  I  then  become 
melancholy,  even  more  melancholy  than  before  !  They 
are  just  the  boys  I  could  wish  them,  they  are  so  affec- 
tionate and  so  kind  to  me  as  makes  me  love  them  more 
and  more  every  day.  William  and  Christopher  are  very 
clever  boys,  at  least  so  they  appear  in  the  partial  eyes 
of  a  sister.  No  doubt  I  am  partial  and  see  virtues  in 
them  that  by  everybody  else  will  pass  unnoticed. 
John,  who  is  to  be  the  sailor,  has  a  most  excellent  heart. 
He  is  not  so  bright  as  either  William  or  Christopher, 
but  he  has  very  good  common  sense,  and  is  well  calcu- 
lated for  the  profession  he  has  chosen.  Richard,  the 
eldest,  I  have  seen.  He  is  equally  affectionate  and 
good,  but  is  far  from  being  as  clever  as  William,  but  I 
have  no  doubt  of  his  succeeding  in  his  business,  for  he 
is  very  diligent  and  far  from  being  dull.  He  only  spent 
a  night  with  us.  Many  a  time  have  William,  John, 
Christopher  and  myself  shed  tears  together,  tears  of 
the  bitterest  sorrow.  We  all  of  us  each  day  feel  more 
sensibly  the  loss  we  sustained  when  we  were  deprived 
of  our  parents,  and  each  day  do  we  receive  fresh  insults. 
You  will  wonder  of  what  sort.  Believe  me  of  the  most 
mortifying  kind— the  insults  of  servants.  ...  I  was  for 
a  whole  week  kept  in  expectation  of  my  brothers,  who 
stayed  at  school  all  that  time  after  the  vacation  began 
owing  to  the  ill-nature  of  my  uncle,  who  would  not  send 
horses  for  them,  because  when  they  wrote  they  did  not 
mention  them,  and  only  said  when  they  should  break  up, 

*  From  the  original  manuscript  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Frank  E.  Marshall, 
Jane  Pollard's  grandson. 


1787]  DOROTHY'S  TROUBLES  77 

which  was  always  before  sufficient.  This  was  the  be- 
ginning of  my  mortifications,  for  I  feel  that,  if  they  had 
had  another  home  to  go  to,  they  would  have  been 
behaved  to  in  a  very  different  manner  and  received  with 
more  cheerful  countenances.  Indeed,  nobody  but  my- 
self expressed  one  wish  to  see  them.  At  last,  however, 
they  were  sent  for,  but  not  till  my  brother  William  had 
hired  a  horse  for  himself,  and  come  over  because  he 
thought  some  one  must  be  ill.  The  servants  are  every 
one  of  them  so  insolent  to  us  as  makes  the  kitchen  as 
well  as  the  parlour  quite  insupportable.  James  has 
even  gone  so  far  as  to  tell  us  that  we  had  nobody  to 
depend  upon  but  my  grandfather,  for  that  our  fortunes 
were  very,  very  small ;  and  my  brothers  cannot  even  get  a 
pair  of  shoes  cleaned  without  James  telling  them  they 
require  as  much  waiting  upon  as  any  '  gentleman,'  nor 
can  I  get  a  thing  done  for  myself  without  absolutely 
entreating  it  as  a  favour.  James  happens  to  be  a  particu- 
lar favourite  with  my  uncle  Kit,  who  has  taken  a  dislike 
to  my  brothers  and  never  takes  any  notice  of  any  of  us, 
so  that  he  thinks  while  my  uncle  behaves  in  this  way  to 
us  he  may  do  anything.  We  are  found  fault  with  every 
hour  of  the  day,  both  by  the  servants  and  my  grandfather 
and  grandmother,  the  former  of  whom  never  speaks  to 
us  but  when  he  scolds,  which  is  not  seldom.  I  dare  say 
our  fortunes  have  been  weighed  thousands  of  times  at 
the  tea-table  in  the  kitchen,  and  I  have  no  doubt  they 
always  conclude  their  conversations  with  '  They  have 
nothing  to  be  proud  of.'  Our  fortunes  will,  I  fear,  be 
very  small,  as  Lord  Lonsdale  will  most  likely  only  pay 
a  very  small  part  of  his  debt,  which  is  £4,700.  My 
uncle  Kit  (who  is  our  guardian)  having  said  many  dis- 
respectful things  of  him,  and  having  always  espoused 
the  cause  of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  has  incensed  him  so 
much  that  I  fear  we  shall  feel  through  life  the  effects  of 
his  imprudence.  We  shall,  however,  have  sufficient  to 
educate  my  brothers.  John,  poor  fellow  !  says  that  he 
shall  have  occasion  for  very  little,  £200  will  be  sufficient 
to  fit  him  out,  and  he  should  wish  William  to  have  the 
rest  for  his  education,  as  he  has  a  wish  to  be  a  lawyer 
if  his  health  will  permit,  and  it  will  be  very  expensive. 
WTe  shall  have,  I  believe,  about  £600  apiece,  if  Lord 
Lonsdale  does  not  pay.  It  is  but  very  little,  but  it  will 
be  quite  enough  for  my  brothers'  education,  and  after 
they  are  once  put  forward  in  the  world  there  is  little 
doubt  of  their  succeeding,  and  for  me  while  they  live 


78  CAMBRIDGE  AND  THE  NORTH      [chap,  in 

I  shall  never  want  a  friend.  Oh,  Jane  !  when  they  have 
left  me  I  shall  be  quite  unhappy.  I  shall  long  more 
ardently  than  ever  for  you,  my  dearest,  dearest  friend. 
We  have  been  told  thousands  of  times  that  we  were  liars, 
but  we  treat  such  behaviour  with  the  contempt  it 
deserves.  We  always  finish  our  conversations,  which 
generally  take  a  melancholy  train,  with  wishing  we  had 
a  father  and  a  home.  Oh,  Jane !  I  hope  it  may  be  long 
ere  you  experience  the  loss  of  your  parents,  but  till  you 
feel  that  loss  you  will  never  know  how  dear  to  you  your 
sisters  are." 

The  uncle  mentioned  in  this  letter,  Christopher 
Crackanthorpe  Cookson,  was  the  brother  of  the  poet's 
mother.  On  his  own  mother's  death,  in  1792,  he  took 
the  surname  of  Crackanthorpe  instead  of  Cookson,  and 
became  Christopher  Crackanthorpe  Crackanthorpe. 

The  second  letter  bears  the  Penrith  stamp,  and  was 
evidently  written  late  in  the  summer  or  early  in  the 
autumn  of  1787.  It  is  dated  merely  "  Monday  evening, 
10  o'clock."* 

"  Yesterday  morning  I  parted  from  the  kindest  and 
most  affectionate  of  brothers.  I  cannot  paint  to  you 
my  distress  at  their  departure.  For  a  few  hours  I  was 
absolutely  miserable.  A  thousand  tormenting  fears 
rushed  upon  me — the  approaching  winter,  the  ill-nature 
of  my  grandfather  and  uncle  Christopher,  the  little 
probability  there  is  of  my  soon  again  seeing  my  youngest 
brother,  and  still  less  likelihood  of  my  revisiting  my 
Halifax  friends,  in  quick  succession  filled  my  mind.  .  .  . 
[She  tells  how  she  has  to  look  for  chances  to  write, 
avoiding  her  grandmother's  watchful  eye.  There  is 
something  merely  romantic,  but  also  perhaps  something 
morbid  and  overstrained,  in  all  this.]  A  gentleman  of 
my  father's  intimate  acquaintance,  who  is  not  worth 
less  than  two  or  three  thousand  pounds  a  year,  and  who 
always  professed  himself  to  be  the  real  friend  of  my 
father,  refused  to  pay  a  bill  of  £700  to  his  children  with- 
out considerable  reductions.  ...  I  am  sure  as  long  as 
my  brothers  have  a  farthing  in  their  pockets  I  shall 
never  want.  My  brother  William  goes  to  Cambridge  in 
October,  but  he  will  be  at  Penrith  before  his  departure. 
He  wishes  very  much  to  be  a  lawyer,  if  his  health  will 

*  From  the  original  manuscript  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Marshall. 


1787]  GIRLISH  CONFIDENCES  79 

permit,  but  he  is  troubled  with  violent  headaches  and  a 
pain  in  his  side,  but  I  hope  they  will  leave  him  in  a  little 
while.  You  must  not  be  surprised  if  you  see  him  at 
Halifax  in  a  short  time.  I  think  he  will  not  be  able  to 
call  there  on  his  way  to  Cambridge,  as  my  uncle  William 
[the  Rev.  William  Cookson]  and  a  young  gentleman  who 
is  going  to  the  same  college  will  accompany  him.  When 
I  wrote  to  you  last  I  had  some  faint  hopes  that  he  might 
have  been  permitted  to  stay  with  me  till  October.  You 
may  guess  how  much  I  was  mortified  and  vexed  at  his 
being  obliged  to  go  away.  I  absolutely  dislike  my 
uncle  Kit.  He  never  speaks  a  pleasant  word  to  one, 
and  behaves  to  my  brother  William  in  a  particularly 
ungenerous  manner.  ...  I  have  a  very  pretty  collection 
of  books  from  my  brothers,  which  they  have  given  me. 
I  will  give  you  a  catalogue.  I  have  the  Iliad  and  Odys- 
sey, Pope's  WTorks,  Fielding's  Works,  Hayley's  poems, 
Gil  Bias,  Dr.  Gregory's  letters  to  his  daughters;  and  my 
brother  Richard  intends  sending  me  Shakespeare's 
plays  and  the  Spectator.  I  have  also  Milton's  works, 
Dr.  Goldsmith's  poems,  etc.  ...  I  am  determined  to 
do  a  great  deal  now  both  in  French  and  English.  My 
grandmother  sits  in  the  shop  in  the  afternoons,  and  by 
working  particularly  hard  for  one  hour  I  think  I  may 
read  the  next  without  being  discovered.  I  rise  pretty 
early  in  the  morning,  so  I  hope  in  time  to  have  perused 
them  all.  I  am  at  present  reading  the  Iliad,  and  like  it 
very  much.     My  brother  William  read  part  of  it." 

After  these  formidable  projects  it  is  pleasant  to  read 
a  feminine  description  of  her  looks :  "  I  am  so  little,  and 
wish  to  appear  as  girlish  as  possible ;  I  wear  my  hair 
curled  about  my  face  in  light  curls  frizzed  at  the  bottom 
and  turned  at  the  ends." 

In  another  letter,  written  late  in  the  autumn,  occurs 
a  more  particular  description:  "  My  grandmother  is 
now  gone  to  bed,  and  I  am  quite  alone.  Imagine  me 
sitting  in  my  bed-gown,  my  hair  out  of  curl  and  hanging 
about  my  face,  with  a  small  candle  beside  me,  and  my 
whole  person  the  picture  of  poverty  (as  it  always  is  in 
a  bed-gown),  and  you  will  then  see  your  friend  Dorothy. 
It  is  after  1 1  o'clock.  I  begin  to  find  myself  very  sleepy, 
and  I  have  my  hair  to  curl,  so  I  must  bid  my  very  dear 
friend  a  Good-night." 


80  CAMBRIDGE  AND  THE  NORTH      [chap,  mi 

One  perceives  that,  after  all,  "  poverty,"  a  dragon 
grandmother,  and  the  dreadful  necessity  of  writing 
letters  at  eleven  o'clock  at  night,  were  not  without  a 
certain  romantic  delightfulness  to  this  young  lady. 

A  few  weeks  later,  as  the  autumn  evenings  lengthened, 
she  wrote  to  her  friend  with  bitterer  feeling  :* 

"  I  often  wish  for  you.  I  think  how  happy  we  could 
be  together  notwithstanding  the  cold  insensibility  of 
my  grandmother  and  the  ill-nature  of  my  grandfather. 
.  .  .  Never  till  I  came  to  Penrith  did  I  feel  the  loss  I  sus- 
tained when  I  was  deprived  of  a  father.  One  would 
imagine  that  a  grandmother  would  feel  for  her  grand- 
child all  the  tenderness  of  a  mother,  particularly  when 
that  grandchild  had  no  other  parent;  but  there  is  so 
little  of  tenderness  in  her  manner,  or  of  anything  affec- 
tionate, that  while  I  am  in  her  house  I  cannot  at  all 
consider  myself  as  at  home.  I  feel  like  a  stranger. 
You  cannot  think  how  gravely  and  silently  I  sit  with 
her  and  my  grandfather — you  would  scarcely  know  me. 
You  are  well  acquainted  that  I  was  never  remarkable 
for  taciturnity,  but  now  I  sit  for  whole  hours  without 
saying  anything  excepting  that  I  have  an  old  shirt  to 
mend;  then  my  grandmother  and  I  have  to  set  our 
heads  together  and  contrive  the  most  notable  way  of 
doing  it,  which  I  daresay  in  the  end  we  always  hit  upon, 
but  really  the  contrivance  itself  takes  up  more  time 
than  the  shirt  is  worth.  Our  only  conversation  is  about 
work,  work,  or  what  sort  of  a  servant  such  a  one's  is, 
who  are  her  parents,  what  places  she  lived  in,  why  she 
left  them,  etc.,  etc.  What,  my  dear  Jane,  can  be  more 
uninteresting  than  such  conversation  as  this  ?  Yet  I 
am  obliged  to  set  upon  the  occasion  as  notable  a  face  as 
if  I  was  delighted  with  it  and  that  nothing  could  be 
more  agreeable  to  me.  Notability  is  preached  up  to 
me  every  day.  Such  an  one  is  a  very  sedate,  clever,  notable 
girl — says  my  grandmother.  My  grandmother's  taste 
and  mine  so  ill  agree  that  there  is  not  one  person  who  is 
a  favourite  with  her  that  I  do  not  dislike.  ...  I  now 
see  so  many  of  those  useful  people  in  their  own  imagina- 
tions, the  notables,  that  I  have  quite  an  aversion  to 
every  one  who  bears  that  character.  ...  I  often  go  to 
the  Cowpers  and  like  Miss  D.  C.  better  than  ever.  I 
wish  my  uncle  and  she  would  marry.     [She  means  her 

*  From  the  original  manuscript  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Marshall. 


i787]  DOLLY  AND  JANE  81 

favourite  uncle,  the  Rev.  William  Cookson,  who  did 
marry  Miss  Cowper,  on  October  17,  1788.]  ...  I  am 
now  writing  beside  that  uncle  I  so  much  love.  He  is  a 
friend  to  whom  next  to  my  aunt  I  owe  the  greatest 
obligations.  Every  day  gives  me  new  proofs  of  his 
affection,  and  every  day  I  like  him  better  than  I  did 
before.  I  am  now  with  him  two  hours  every  morning, 
from  nine  till  eleven.  I  then  read  and  write  French, 
and  learn  arithmetic.  When  I  am  a  good  arithmetician 
I  am  to  learn  geography.  I  sit  in  his  room  when  we 
have  a  fire.  ...  I  had  my  brother  William  with  me  for 
three  weeks.  I  was  very  busy  during  his  stay,  pre- 
paring him  for  Cambridge,  so  that  I  had  very  little 
leisure,  and  what  I  had  you  may  be  sure  I  wished  to 
spend  with  him.  I  have  heard  from  my  brother  William 
since  his  arrival  at  Cambridge.  He  spent  three  or  four 
days  at  York  upon  the  road." 

In  her  next  letter  to  Miss  Pollard,  dated  Friday, 
December  17,  she  refers  to  a  copy  of  the  Kilmarnock 
edition  of  Burns's  poems,  published  the  year  before. 
William  "  had  read  it,  and  admired  many  of  the  pieces 
very  much,  and  promised  to  get  it  for  me  at  the  book- 
club, which  he  did."  She  found  the  Address  to  a  Louse 
"  very  comical,"  and  the  one  to  a  Mountain  Daisy 
"  very  pretty."     But  she  longs  for  liberty. 

"  Oh,  Jane,  Jane,"  she  cries,*  "  that  I  could  but  see 
you  !  how  happy,  how  very  happy,  we  should  be  !  I 
really  think  that  for  an  hour  after  our  meeting  there 
would  nothing  pass  betwixt  us  but  tears  of  joy,  fits  of 
laughter,  and  unconnected  exclamations,  such  as  '  Oh 
Jane  !'  '  Oh  Dolly  !'  It  is  now  seven  months  since  we 
parted.  What  a  long  time  !  We  have  never  been 
separated  so  long  for  these  nine  years.  I  shall  soon 
have  been  here  a  year,  and  in  two  years  more  I  am 
determined  I  will  come  to  Halifax  if  I  cannot  sooner, 
but  I  hope  my  uncle  William  is  now  on  the  road  to  pre- 
ferment. If  I  do  not  flatter  myself  without  having  any 
right,  he  will  soon  be  married.  I  must  certainly  in  a 
little  time  go  to  see  him,  and  then  I  shall  visit  Halifax.  .  .  . 
I  daresay  yon  look  forward  with  pleasure  to  the  approach- 
ing season;  I  am  sorry  to  say  I  cannot.     Believe  me,  my 

*   From  the  original  manuscript,  which  has  been  partly  reproduced,  with 
an  incorrect  date,  in  "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,"  I.  5. 

I.  6 


82  CAMBRIDGE  AND  THE  NORTH      [chap,  m 

dear  Jane,  I  wish  you  many  merry  evenings  and  agree- 
able dances.  I  shall  often  think  of  you,  and  flatter 
myself  that  on  Christmas  Day,  which  you  know  is  my 
birthday,  you  will  cast  a  melancholy  thought  upon  your 
friend  Dorothy.  .  .  .  The  assemblies  are  indeed  begun, 
but  they  are  no  amusement  for  me.  There  was  one  on 
Wednesday  evening,  where  there  were  a  number  of 
ladies,  but  alas  !  only  six  gentlemen,  so  two  ladies  were 
obliged  to  dance  together." 

In  a  letter  to  Miss  Pollard,  written  apparently  in 
January,  1788,  she  mentions  the  recent  sudden  death  of 
her  grandfather.  More  than  once,  writing  of  her 
brothers — Richard  in  London,  William  at  Cambridge, 
Christopher  at  Hawkshead,  and  John,  sailing  now  to  the 
West  Indies,  now  to  the  East— she  exclaims,  "  How  we 
are  squandered  abroad  !"  Her  ardent  nature  yearned 
for  affection  and  intimacy.  At  last  her  uncle  William 
married  Miss  Cowper,  and  was  appointed  rector  of 
Forncett,  near  Long  Stretton,  in  Norfolk.  Thither 
they  went  in  December,  1788,  taking  the  happy  girl 
with  them.  Writing  to  Jane  from  Norwich,  where  they 
stayed  a  few  days  in  December,  1788,  before  settling  at 
Forncett,  she  says:  "  I  have  now  nothing  left  to  wish 
for  on  my  own  account.  Every  day  gives  me  fresh 
proofs  of  my  uncle  and  aunt's  goodness.  .  .  .  My  happi- 
ness was  very  unexpected.  When  my  uncle  told  me,  I 
was  almost  mad  with  joy.  I  cried  and  laughed  alter- 
nately. It  was  in  a  walk  with  him  that  it  was  commu- 
nicated to  me." 

On  the  way  they  had  stopped  for  a  few  hours  at  Cam- 
bridge, where  she  greatly  admired  the  buildings,  and 
walked  with  delight  in  the  college  courts  and  groves. 
She  thought  it  odd  to  see  the  "  smart  powdered  heads  " 
of  the  students,  "  with  black  caps  like  helmets,  only  that 
they  had  a  square  piece  of  wood  at  the  top,  and  gowns 
something  like  those  that  clergymen  wear,"  but  she 
considered  the  costume  "  exceedingly  becoming."  She 
saw  her  brother  there. 

For  about  four  years  Forncett  rectory  was  to  be  her 
home,  until  what  she  called  "  the  day  of  my  felicity,  the 


1788]  BRAVE  HOPES  83 

day  on  which  I  am  to  find  a  home  under  the  same  roof 
as  my  brother."  She  was  so  happy  with  her  uncle  and 
aunt,  and  so  busy  gardening,  raising  poultry,  teaching 
the  country  children,  visiting  the  sick,  and  reading, 
that  only  one  desire  was  left  unsatisfied — the  desire  to 
be  with  William.  This  longing,  however,  grew  until  it 
drove  every  other  thought  from  her  mind.  She  wrote 
about  him  and  to  him  with  the  warmth  and  abandon- 
ment of  a  lover.  Her  occasional  journeys  to  the  North, 
to  Halifax,  Sockburn,  and  Penrith,  only  revived  his 
memory.  Her  visits  to  Windsor,  where  her  uncle 
was  occasionally  on  duty  as  a  canon  of  the  Chapel 
Royal,  and  where  she  saw  many  grand  people  and 
was  introduced  to  the  royal  family,  only  increased 
her  admiration  and  solicitude  for  the  plain  young 
republican. 

He  who  has  not  lingered  in  the  Lake  country  till  far 
into  the  autumn  cannot  realize  the  meaning  of  Words- 
worth's lines  at  the  opening  of  the  sixth  book  of  "  The 
Prelude,"  in  which  he  relates  that  he  turned  his  face 

from  the  coves  and  heights 
Clothed  in  the  sunshine  of  the  withering  fern; 
Quitted,  not  loth,  the  mild  magnificence 
Of  calmer  lakes  and  louder  streams. 

The  golden  bracken  and  the  voice  of  full-fed  streams 
are  nature's  signals  to  depart.  They  remind  the  visitor 
that  summer  is  gone  and  winter  at  hand .  Wordsworth ,  as 
one  not  yet  fitted  to  dwell  uninterruptedly  in  this  retreat, 
went  back  willingly  enough  to  Cambridge.  But  though 
refreshed  and  cheerful,  he  withdrew  now  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life  into  something  like  solitude.  He  read 
copiously,  but  without  a  settled  plan.  He  troubled 
himself  very  little  about  the  prescribed  studies,  except 
from  a  sense  of  duty  to  his  friends  and  kindred.  He 
knew  he  was  a  poet,  and  was  calmly  happy  in  the  present 
sense  of  joy  and  the  certain  anticipation  of  future  power. 
In  those  days  he  first  dared  to  hope  that  he  might  leave 
behind  him  some  monument  "  which  pure  hearts  should 
reverence."     The  analogy  with  Milton  is  evident,  and 


84  CAMBRIDGE  AND  THE  NORTH      [chap,  hi 

perhaps  Milton's  example  gave  him  courage.  He  de- 
clares* that 

the  dread  awe 

Of  mighty  names  was  softened  down  and  seemed 

Approachable,  admitting  fellowship 

Of  modest  sympathy. 

Such  boldness  did  the  alma  mater  of  Spenser,  Marlowe, 
Fletcher,  Ben  Jonson,  Milton,  Crashaw,  Herrick,  Her- 
bert, Cowley,  and  Gray,  instil  into  her  nursling.  All 
winter  long  it  was  his  habit  to  walk  in  the  groves  of  his 
college  in  the  evening  till  the  nine  o'clock  bell  summoned 
him  to  go  indoors.  The  human  beauty  of  Cambridge, 
her  peculiar  blending  of  quiet,  unobtrusive,  and  half- 
rural  simplicity  with  some  of  the  noblest  monuments 
of  Gothic  architecture  to  be  found  in  the  world,  charmed 
him  in  spite  of  himself.  His  three  sonnets  "  Inside  of 
King's  College  Chapel,  Cambridge,"  are  sufficient  evi- 
dence that  he  was  neither  unappreciative  nor  ungrateful. 
And  no  doubt  his  mind,  "  in  hours  of  fear  or  grovelling 
thought,"  sought  refuge  in  the  memory  of  that  "  glorious 
work  of  fine  intelligence." 

Yet  we  have  only  two  poems,  originally  one,  but 
printed  as  two,  of  which  it  is  known  with  certainty 
that  he  composed  them  at  Cambridge.  These  are  the 
"  Lines  written  while  sailing  in  a  Boat  at  Evening  " 
and  the  three  additional  stanzas  entitled  "  Remembrance 
of  Collins,"  in  which  he  has  arbitrarily  changed  the 
scene  to  the  Thames. 

His  second  summer  vacation,  that  of  1789,  was  spent 
in  the  north  again.  He  explored  Dovedale  in  Derby- 
shire, and  some  of  the  valleys  in  western  Yorkshire 
and  hidden  tracts  of  his  own  native  region.  Between 
these  wanderings  he  was  blessed,  he  tells  us,  with  a 
joy  "  that  seemed  another  morn  risen  on  mid-noon," 
the  presence  of  his  sister,  from  whom  he  had  been  so 
long  separated  that  "  she  seemed  a  gift  then  first  be- 
stowed." At  their  age  time  had  wrought  many 
changes  in  both  of  them,  all  tending  to  make  them  more 
interesting   in    each    other's    eyes.     She    had    returned 

*  "  Prelude,"  VI.  59. 


1789]  SECOND  SUMMER  VACATION  85 

from  Forncett  to  Penrith  or  to  Penrith  and  Halifax 
for  the  summer.  She  was  now  old  enough  to  take 
some  of  the  freedom  from  household  restraints  which 
she  had  longed  for,  and  under  her  brother's  charge  she 
visited  the  many  romantic  scenes  within  easy  reach  of 
Penrith.  Side  by  side  they  strolled  along  the  banks  of 
Emont,  and  climbed  among  the  ruins  of  Brougham 
Castle,  thinking  of  Sidney,  who,  as  tradition  said,  penned 
there  snatches  of  his  "  Arcadia,"  which  was  written 
for  his  sister,  the  Countess  of  Pembroke.  Here  they 
clambered  up  broken  stairs  and  out  into  the  sunlight 
on  ridges  of  fractured  walls,  to  lie  on  an  old  turret,* 

Catching  from  tufts  of  grass  and  hare-bell  flowers 
Their  faintest  whisper  to  the  passing  breeze, 
Given  out  while  mid-day  heat  oppressed  the  plains. 

The  long  companionship,  the  deep  and  unbroken 
communion  of  spirits,  really  began  in  this  happy  season. 
It  was  then,  too,  that  he  first  felt  the  stirrings  of  affection 
for  Mary  Hutchinson,  his  sister's  friend,  to  him  at  that 
time  f 

By  her  exulting  outside  look  of  youth 

And  placid  under-countenance,  first  endeared. 

Their  haunts  were  the  high  hill  beyond  Penrith  called 
the  Beacon,  on  which  the  signal  fires  used  to  blaze  in 
times  of  Border  warfare,  and  the  crags  and  pools  on  the 
bare  fell,  and  the  shady  woods  and  lanes  of  eglantine, 
whence  he  gathered  thoughts  of  love  - 

The  spirit  of  pleasure,  and  youth's  golden  gleam. 

In  their  wanderings  the}-  passed  the  spot  where,  as  a 
child,  he  had  once  been  struck  with  sombre  fear  by  its 
loneliness  and  the  remembered  story  of  an  execution. 
Now,  "  in  the  blessed  hours  of  early  love,"  and  with  the 
loved  one  by  his  side,  the  same  melancholy  place  gave 
him  only  joy,  for 

The  mind  is  lord  and  master — outward  sense  Jir- 

The  obedient  servant  of  her  will. 

*  "  Prelude,"  VI.  221.  \Ibid.,  226. 


86  CAMBRIDGE  AND  THE  NORTH      [chap,  m 

It  is  difficult  to  believe  that  this  awakening  of  interest  in 
Mary  Hutchinson,  in  the  summer  of  1789,  deepened 
at  once  into  the  passion  of  love.  Many  years,  filled 
with  other  associations,  were  to  intervene  between  this 
idyll  and  their  marriage  in  1802.  Wordsworth's  ardour 
and  self-will  were  so  intense  that,  had  he  at  this  time 
really  loved,  he  would  have  been  unlikely  to  suppress 
his  feelings.  It  is  to  be  supposed,  also,  that  in  such  case 
more  frequent  mention  of  Miss  Hutchinson  would  have 
been  made  in  Dorothy  Wordsworth's  letters  to  Miss 
Pollard. 

In  one  of  these,  written  at  Forncett,  January  25, 
1790,  she  says  : 

"  My  brother  John,  I  imagine,  sailed  for  India  on 
Saturday  or  Sunday  in  the  '  Earl  of  Abergavenny.'  He 
wrote  to  me  the  other  day  in  excellent  spirits.  William 
is  at  Cambridge,  Richard  in  London,  Kit  at  Hawkshead. 
How  we  are  squandered  abroad  !"  She  tells  about  her 
little  voluntary  school  of  nine  pupils,  and  adds  this 
interesting  paragraph:  "  Mr.  Wilberforce  has  been  with 
us  rather  better  than  a  month.  Tell  your  father  I  hope 
he  will  give  him  his  vote  at  the  next  general  election. 
I  believe  him  to  be  one  of  the  best  of  men.  He  allows 
me  ten  guineas  a  year  to  distribute  in  what  manner  I 
think  best  to  the  poor." 

Defending  herself  from  Miss  Pollard's  insinuation 
that  Mr.  W.  (Wilberforce  ?)  may  have  come  as  a  suitor, 
she  says,  in  a  letter  of  March  30,  1790,  "  Your  way  of 
accounting  for  my  absence  of  mind  diverted  me  exceed- 
ingly. I  will  set  forward  with  assuring  you  that  my 
heart  is  perfectly  disengaged,  and  then  endeavour  to 
show  you  how  very  improbable  it  is  that  Mr.  W.  would 
think  of  me.  As  to  the  first  point,  I  can  only  say  that 
no  man  I  have  seen  has  appeared  to  regard  me  with 
any  degree  of  partiality,  nor  has  anyone  gained  my 
affections."  She  says  she  is  reading  Pope's  works, 
and  a  little  treatise  on  Regeneration,  which,  with 
Mrs.  Trimmer's  "  (Economy  of  Charity,"  Mr.  Wilber- 
force had  given  her.  She  is  going  to  read  the  New 
Testament  with  Doddridge's  exposition.     In  this  letter 


i79o]  FAMILY  FINANCES  87 

we  find  her  first  mention  of  her  brother's  future  wife: 
"  The  seal  you  showed  so  much  sagacity  in  your  con- 
jectures about  was  given  me  by  a  Penrith  friend,  Mary 
Hutchinson."  Of  her  brother  she  writes:  "  I  long  to 
have  an  opportunity  of  introducing  you  to  my  dear 
William.  I  am  very  anxious  about  him  just  now,  as 
he  will  shortly  have  to  provide  for  himself.  Next  year 
he  takes  his  degree.  When  he  will  go  into  orders  I  do  not 
know,  nor  how  he  will  employ  himself.  He  must, 
when  he  is  three-and-twenty,  either  go  into  orders  or 
take  pupils.     He  will  be  twenty  in  April." 

It  must  not  be  inferred  from  the  expression  "  provide 
for  himself  "  that  her  brother  was  being  educated  at 
the  expense  of  her  uncles.  His  own  share  of  his  parents' 
estates  would  be  sufficient  to  pay  for  his  education, 
though,  until  the  money  came  in,  his  uncles  were  prob- 
ably obliged  to  advance  part  of  the  sum  required. 
But  at  best,  if  Lord  Lonsdale  should  pay  his  debt  and 
all  other  business  matters  should  be  satisfactorily 
settled,  very  little  would  remain  for  William  and 
Christopher  after  deducting  their  college  expenses.  We 
find  Dorothy  writing  as  follows  on  December  7,  1791  :* 

"Our  grandmother  has  shown  us  great  kindness,  and  has 
promised  to  give  us  five  hundred  pounds  (£100  apiece), 
the  first  time  she  receives  her  rents.  .  .  .  Our  several  re- 
sources are  these:  £500  which  my  grandmother  is  to 
give  us,  £500  which  is  due  on  account  of  my  mother's 
fortune,  about  £200  which  my  uncle  Kit  owes  us,  and 
£1,000  at  present  in  the  hands  of  our  guardians,  and 
about  £150  which  we  are  to  receive  out  of  the  Newbiggin 
estate,  with  what  may  be  adjudged  as  due  to  us  from 
Lord  Lonsdale.  My  brother  Richard  has  about  £100 
per  annum,  and  William  has  received  his  education,  for 
which  a  reduction  will  be  made;  so  that  I  hope,  unless 
we  are  treated  in  the  must  unjust  manner  possible,  my 
three  younger  brothers  and  I  will  have  £1,000  apiece, 
deducting  in  William 's  share  the  expense  of  his  education. ' ' 

If  the  young  collegian  could  have  made  up  his  mind 
to  be  a  clergyman,  his  connection  with  his  uncle  Cook- 

*  Erroneously  printed  "  1790  "  in  Professor  Knight's  "  Letters  of  the 
Wordsworth  Family."     From  the  original  manuscript. 


88  CAMBRIDGE  AND  THE  NORTH      [chap,  m 

son  would  probably  have  helped  him  to  a  church 
"  living."  But  doubtless  the  taint  communicated 
to  the  profession  by  its  dependence  on  worldly  favour 
and  the  patronage  of  the  rich  rendered  it  unattractive 
to  his  pure  and  generous  mind.  It  was  possible  for  a 
young  graduate,  with  little  more  theological  reading 
than  that  required  for  the  general  degree  of  Bachelor  of 
Arts,  to  be  placed  almost  at  once  in  a  curacy.  Of 
course,  standing  in  the  university  affected  a  candidate's 
chances  of  securing  what  is  known  as  a  "  good  "  living — 
that  is,  one  with  a  large  salary. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    OPEN    ROAD 

The  academic  }rear,  or  at  least  that  part  of  it  in  which 
residence  was  required,  being  only  about  half  the  calen- 
dar year,  students  who  expected  to  distinguish  them-  / 
selves  in  the  examinations  were  accustomed  to  spend 
their  final  long  vacation  in  hard  study,  either  at  Cam- 
bridge or  in  some  quieter  place.  Wordsworth's  relaJ 
tives,  therefore,  were  disappointed  when  he  decided  to 
make  use  of  the  summer  and  early  autumn  of  1 790  in  a 
way  which  apparently  would  not  lead  to  academic 
honours  nor  to  a  profession  nor  to  pecuniary  profit. 
It  was  most  natural,  however,  that  Wordsworth,  in 
his  unsettled  state  of  mind,  should  yield  to  his  love  of 
landscape  and  his  fondness  for  walking,  and  hasten  as 
soon  as  possible  from  the  indoor  restraints  and  the 
bookishness  of  the  university.  And  the  events  then 
occurring  with  such  good  augury  in  France  would 
arouse  the  hopeful  curiosity  of  an  open-minded  and 
democratic  youth.  Undergraduate  society  at  Cam- 
bridge was  on  the  whole  liberal  as  compared  with  the 
tone  of  thought  in  most  of  the  homes  from  which  the 
students  came,  and  Wordsworth  was,  as  we  have  seem 
predisposed  by  his  Hawkshead  life  to  practise,  if  not  tcj 
profess,  a  belief  in  human  equality.  Nature  had  taught} 
him  that  her  laws,  her  faithfulness,  and  her  beauty, 
could  be  observed  as  well  in  small  as  in  great  objects. 
Experience  in  divers  ranks  of  society  had  shown  him 
how  ill-based  were  the  conventional  distinctions.  It 
is  not  to  be  thought  that  the  system  of  ideas  known 
as  Revolutionary  had  penetrated  Cambridge  without 
arousing    his    sympathetic    interest      Yet    it    is    likely, 

8g 


90  THE  OPEN  ROAD  [chap,  iv 

too,  that,  with  the  indifference  to  politics  which  charac- 
terizes Anglo-Saxon  youth,  he  failed  to  realize  at  this 
time  the  importance  or  even  the  dramatic  values  of 
the  great  world-movement  of  which  he  was  soon  to 
catch  a  glimpse.  He  cared  far  more  for  landscape. 
Indeed,  the  enjoyment  of  natural  beauty  was  apparently 
his  one  absorbing  passion.  In  planning  a  journey  on 
foot  from  Calais  to  the  Alps,  he  was  willing  to  pass 
within  a  day's  march  of  Amiens  and  Rheims  without 
breaking  his  bird-like  flight  to  see  their  cathedrals, 
and  within  fifty  miles  of  Paris  without  being  drawn 
into  what  was  then,  more  than  ever,  the  heart  of  the 
world's  political  circulation.  The  only  object  for  which 
he  turned  aside  was  the  Grande  Chartreuse,  where  great 
natural  beauty  combined  with  religious  interest  to  pro- 
duce a  peculiar  romantic  charm.  A  similar  attraction 
led  him  once  and  only  once  again  to  interrupt  his  enjoy- 
ment of  landscape  for  the  sake  of  a  monument  of  human 
design,  the  convent  of  Einsiedeln. 

His  companion  was  a  fellow-collegian,  Robert  Jones, 
of  Plas-yn-llan,  in  Wales,  who  remained  his  friend 
through  life.  They  arrived  in  Calais  on  July  13,  1790, 
and  set  out  next  day  on  a  "  march  of  military  speed," 
that  carried  them  in  precisely  two  weeks  to  Chalons  on 
the  Saone,  a  distance  of  over  three  hundred  and  fifty 
miles.  They  slept  at  Ardres  on  the  14th,  Peronne  the 
17th,  a  village  near  Coucy  the  18th,  Soissons  the  19th, 
Chateau  Thierry  the  20th,  Sezanne  the  21st,  a  village 
near  Troyes  the  22nd,  Bar-sur-Seine  the  23rd,  Chatillon- 
sur-Seine  the  24th,  Nuits  the  26th,  and  Chalons  the  27th 
and  28th.  They  descended  the  Sa6ne  to  Lyons  by 
boat,  where  they  slept  on  July  30.  Next  day  they 
sailed  down  the  Rhone  to  Coudrieu,  and  disembarked, 
it  appears,  at  St.  Vallier,  about  twenty  miles  above 
Valence.  On  August  1  they  slept  at  a  village  called, 
in  their  itinerary,  Moreau,  on  the  2nd  at  Voreppe, 
on  the  3rd  at  a  village  near  the  Grande  Chartreuse, 
and  on  the  4th  they  visited  that  celebrated  monastery. 
On  the  6th  they  were  at  Aix-les-Bains,  and  on  the 
9th   Lausanne,  having,  it  would  seem,  passed  rapidly 


1790]  TRAMP  ACROSS  EUROPE  91 

through  Geneva  and  proceeded  along  the  north  shore  of 
the  Lake. 

From  Lausanne  they  proceeded  up  the  Valais,  by 
way  of  Villeneuve  on  the  10th,  and  St.  Maurice  or 
Martigny  on  the  1  ith,  and  thence,  leaving  their  bundles 
at  the  latter  town,  strode  over  the  Col  de  Balme  to 
Chamonix  on  the  12th.  They  spent  the  13th  at 
Chamonix,  and  returned  to  the  Valais  at  Martigny  on 
the  14th.  On  July  15  they  were  at  a  village  beyond 
Sion,  on  the  16th  at  Brieg,  on  the  17th  at  the  Hospice 
on  the  Simplon,  on  the  18th  at  Morgozza,  on  the  19th 
at  a  village  beyond  Lago  Maggiore,  on  the  20th  at  a 
village  on  Lake  Como,  on  the  21st  at  a  village  beyond 
Gravedona.  On  the  22nd  Wordsworth  reached  Samo- 
laco,  and  Jones  the  town  of  Chiavenna,  six  miles  farther 
north,  and  on  the  23rd  they  were  at  Soazza,  in  the  canton 
Grisons,  whence  they  crossed  to  the  village  of  Hinter- 
rhein.  On  the  24th  they  reached  Spluegen,  on  the 
25  th  Flims,  having  descended  the  Hinter  Rhein  to  its 
junction  with  the  Vorder  Rhein,  on  the  26th  Dissentis, 
whence  via  Tschmutt  and  Andermatt  they  crossed  to 
the  Reuss  on  the  26th,  descending  to  Fluelen  on  the 
28th,  and  proceeding  to  Lucerne  on  the  29th.  With 
amazing  speed  and  regularity  they  hastened  on,  and 
reached  the  shores  of  the  Lake  of  Zurich  on  the  30th, 
when  they  made  their  second  deviation,  to  visit  the 
abbey  and  wonder-working  image  of  Einsiedeln,  on  the 
31st.  On  September  1  and  2  they  were  at  Glarus, 
on  the  3rd  at  a  village  beyond  the  Lake  of  Wallen- 
stadt,  on  the  4th  at  a  village  on  the  road  to  Appen- 
zell,  on  the  5th  at  Appenzell,  and  on  the  6th  at 
Kesswyl,  on  the  Lake  of  Constance.  On  the  10th 
they  arrived  at  Lucerne,  having  spent  two  days  along 
the  Rhine,  and  crossed,  apparently,  through  Aargau. 
On  the  1  ith  they  left  Lucerne,  and  on  the  13th  reached 
Grindelwald,  stopping  at  Sachseln  on  the  Lake  of  Sarnen, 
and  probably  going  by  way  of  the  Lake  of  Lungern,  the 
Bruenig  Pass,  Meiringen,  and  the  Great  Scheideck.  On 
the  14th  they  descended  to  Lauterbrunnen ;  on  the  15th 
they  stopped  at  a  village  three  leagues  from  Berne  ;  on  the 


l/ 


92  THE  OPEN  ROAD  [chap.iv 

1 6th  they  reached  Avenches,  near  the  Lake  of  Morat, 
having  deviated  considerably  from  the  most  direct  route 
to  Basel,  which  appears  to  have  been  their  objective. 

The  reason  for  this  detour  is  sufficiently  evident  if  we 
consider  that  lakes,  rather  than  cities  or  even  mountains, 
were  what  they  sought,  and  furthermore  that  some  of  the 
most  entrancing  pages  of  Rousseau  had  bestowed  a 
romantic  charm  upon  the  group  of  waters  near  Neu- 
chatel.  In  this  neighbourhood  they  lingered  three 
days,  probably  visiting  the  island  of  St.  Pierre,  which 
had  been  made  famous  in  the  twelfth  book  of  the  "  Con- 
fessions "  and  in  the  fifth  Revery.  Between  the  19th 
and  the  21st  they  went  on  to  Basel,  where  they  at  once 
bought  a  boat,  in  which  they  floated  down  the  Rhine 
to  Cologne  in  one  week.  Thence  they  struck  across- 
country  to  Calais,  coming  to  a  place  three  leagues  from 
Aix-la-Chapelle  on  September  29,  which  is  the  last  date 
recorded.  The  distance  thence  to  Calais  could  hardly 
be  covered  in  less  than  ten  days. 

In  a  letter  to  his  sister,  Wordsworth  had  expressed  the 
hope  of  being  in  England  by  October  10.  There  was 
no  necessity  for  him  to  be  in  Cambridge  before  Novem- 
ber 10.  In  a  letter  to  Miss  Pollard,  dated  Forncett, 
October  6,  1790,  his  impatient  sister  writes : 

"  If  you  have  been  informed  that  I  have  had  so  dear 
a  friend  as  my  brother  William  traversing  (on  foot,  with 
only  one  companion)  the  mountains  of  Switzerland 
during  the  whole  of  this  summer,  and  that  he  has  not 
yet  returned,  I  flatter  myself  you  will  be  anxious  on 
my  account  to  hear  of  his  welfare.  I  received  a  very 
long  letter  from  him  a  week  ago,  which  was  begun  upon 
the  lake  of  Constance  ten  days  before  its  conclusion  at 
the  city  of  Berne." 

With  characteristic  impetuosity,  and  confidence  that 
whatever  her  brother  did  must  interest  her  friend  Jane, 
she  copies  his  long  itinerary  and  most  of  his  observations. 
She  then  mentions  being  very  well  acquainted  with  the 
father  and  mother  of  James  and  Harriet  Martineau. 

The  letter  to  which  she  refers  is  as  follows.  Its  interest 
will  be  trebled  if  it  is  read  in  connection  with  "  Descrip- 


i79oi  LETTER  FROM  SWITZERLAND  93 

tive  Sketches  " — preferably  as  originally  printed — and 
the  second  half  of  the  sixth  book  of  "  The  Prelude." 
It  was  written  in  Switzerland,  at  intervals  between 
September  6  and  16,  1790,  and  is  printed  at  length  in 
Vol.  I.  of  the  "  Memoirs."  The  following  passages  are 
the  most  interesting: 

"  My  spirits  have  been  kept  in  a  perpetual  hurry  of 
delight,  by  the  almost  uninterrupted  succession  of 
sublime  and  beautiful  objects  which  have  passed  before 
my  eyes  during  the  course  of  the  last  month.  ...  At  the 
lake  of  Como,  my  mind  ran  through  a  thousand  dreams 
of  happiness,  which  might  be  enjoyed  upon  its  banks 
if  heightened  by  conversation  and  the  exercise  of  the 
social  affections.  Among  the  more  awful  scenes  of  the 
Alps,  I  had  not  a  thought  of  man,  or  a  single  created 
being;  my  whole  soul  was  turned  to  Him  who  produced 
the  terrible  majesty  before  me.  ...  I  hope  we  shall  be 
in  England  by  the  10th  of  October.  I  have  had,  during 
the  course  of  this  delightful  tour,  a  great  deal  of  un- 
easiness from  an  apprehension  of  your  anxiety  on  my 
account.  I  have  thought  of  you  perpetually;  and  never  L- 
have  my  eyes  burst  upon  a  scene  of  particular  loveliness 
but  I  have  almost  instantly  wished  that  you  could  for  a 
moment  be  transported  to  the  place  where  I  stood  to 
enjoy  it.  I  have  been  more  particularlv  induced  to 
form  these  wishes  because  the  scenes  of  Switzerland 
have  no  resemblance  to  any  I  have  found  in  England ; 
consequently  it  may  probably  never  be  in  your  power 
to  form  an  idea  of  them.  We  are  now,  as  I  observed 
above,  upon  the  point  of  quitting  these  most  sublime  and 
beautiful  parts ;  and  3^ou  cannot  imagine  the  melancholy 
regret  which  I  feel  at  the  idea.  I  am  a  perfect  enthu-  ,■ 
siast  in  my  admiration  of  nature  in  all  her  various  forms; 
and  I  have  looked  upon,  and,  as  it  were,  conversed  with, 
the  objects  which" this  country  has  presented  to  my  view 
so  long,  and  with  such  increasing  pleasure,  that  the  idea 
of  parting  from  them  oppresses  me  with  a  sadness  similar 
to  what  I  have  always  felt  in  quitting  a  beloved  friend. 

"  There  is  no  reason  to  be  surprised  at  the  strong 
attachment  which  the  Swiss  have  always  shown  to  their 
nativeVountry.  Much  of  it  must  undoubtedly  have  been 
owing  to  those  charms  which  have  already  produced  so 
powerful  an  effect  upon  me,  and  to  which  the  rudest 
minds   cannot   possibly  be   indifferent.     Ten   thousand 


94  THE  OPEN  ROAD  [chap,  iv 

times  in  the  course  of  this  tour  have  I  regretted  the 
inability  of  my  memory  to  retain  a  more  strong  impres- 
sion of  the  beautiful  forms  before  me;  and  again  and 
again,  in  quitting  a  fortunate  station,  have  I  returned 
to  it  with  the  most  eager  avidity,  in  the  hope  of  bearing 
away  a  more  lively  picture.  At  this  moment,  when 
many  of  these  landscapes  are  floating  before  my  mind, 
I  feel  a  high  enjoyment  in  reflecting  that  perhaps  scarcely 
a  day  of  my  life  will  pass  in  which  I  shall  not  derive 
some  happiness  from  these  images.  .  .  .  My  partiality 
to  Switzerland,  excited  by  its  natural  charms,  induces 
me  to  hope  that  the  manners  of  the  inhabitants  are 
amiable;  but  at  the  same  time  I  cannot  help  frequently 
comparing  them  with  those  of  the  French,  and,  as  far 
as  I  have  had  opportunity  to  observe,  they  lose  very 
much  by  the  comparison.  We  not  only  found  the 
French  a  much  less  imposing  people,  but  that  politeness 
diffused  through  the  lowest  ranks  had  an  air  so  engaging 
that  you  could  scarce  attribute  it  to  any  other  cause 
than  real  benevolence.  During  the  time,  which  was 
near  a  month,  that  we  were  in  France,  we  had  not  once 
to  complain  of  the  smallest  deficiency  in  courtesy  in 
any  person,  much  less  of  any  positive  rudeness.  We 
had  also  perpetual  occasion  to  observe  that  cheerfulness 
and  sprightliness  for  which  the  French  have  always  been 
remarkable.  But  I  must  remind  you  that  we  crossed 
at  the  time  when  the  whole  nation  was  mad  with  joy 
in  consequence  of  the  revolution.  It  was  a  most  inter- 
esting period  to  be  in  France ;  and  we  had  many  delight- 
ful scenes,  where  the  interest  of  the  picture  was  owing 
solely  to  this  cause.  I  was  also  much  pleased  with  what 
I  saw  of  the  Italians  during  the  short  time  we  were 
among  them.  We  had  several  times  occasion  to  ob- 
serve a  softness  and  elegance  which  contrasted  strongly 
with  the  severe  austereness  of  their  neighbours  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Alps.  .  .  .  We  have  both  enjoyed  most 
excellent  health ;  and  we  have  been  so  inured  to  walking 
that  we  are  both  become  almost  insensible  to  fatigue. 
We  have  several  times  performed  a  journey  of  thirteen 
leagues  over  the  most  mountainous  parts  of  Switzerland 
without  any  more  weariness  than  if  we  had  been  walking 
an  hour  in  the  groves  of  Cambridge.  Our  appearance 
is  singular;  and  we  have  often  observed  that,  in  passing 
through  a  village,  we  have  excited  a  general  smile. 
Our  coats,  which  we  had  made  light  on  purpose  for  the 
journey,  are  of  the  same  piece;  and  our  manner  of  carry- 


i79o]  STAFF  AND  KNAPSACK  95 

ing  our  bundles,  which  is  upon  our  heads,  with  each  an 
oak  stick  in  our  hands,  contributes  not  a  little  to  that 
general  curiosity  which  we  seem  to  excite.  ...  I  flatter 
myself  still  with  the  hope  of  seeing  you  for  a  fortnight 
or  three  weeks,  if  it  be  agreeable  to  my  uncle,  as  there 
will  be  no  necessity  for  me  to  be  in  Cambridge  before 
the  ioth  of  November.  I  shall  be  better  able  to  judge 
whether  I  am  likely  to  enjoy  this  pleasure  in  about 
three  weeks.  I  shall  probably  write  to  you  again  before 
I  quit  France;  if  not,  most  certainly  immediately  on  my 
landing  in  England.  You  wall  remember  me  affec- 
tionately to  my  uncle  and  aunt;  as  he  was  acquainted 
with  my  giving  up  all  thoughts  of  a  fellowship,  he  may, 
perhaps,  not  be  so  displeased  at  this  journey.  I  should 
be  sorry  if  I  have  offended  him  by  it." 

Three  years  after  their  delightful  journey,  Words- 
worth dedicated  to  his  fellow-traveller,  by  that  time 
the  Rev.  Robert  Jones,  fellow  of  St.  John's  College, 
Cambridge,  a  little  volume  entitled  "  Descriptive 
Sketches.  In  Verse.  Taken  during  a  Pedestrian  Tour 
in  the  Italian,  Grison,  Swiss,  and  Savoyard  Alps.  By 
W.  Wordsworth,  B.A.,  of  St.  John's,  Cambridge." 
"  In  inscribing  this  little  book  to  you,"  he  says,  "  I 
consult  my  heart.  You  know  well  how  great  is  the 
difference  between  two  companions  lolling  in  a  post- 
chaise,  and  two  travellers  plodding  slowly  along  the 
road,  side  by  side,  each  with  his  little  knapsack  of 
necessaries  upon  his  shoulders.  How  much  more  of 
heart  between  the  two  latter  !"  It  is  merely  indicative 
of  the  formality  of  eighteenth-century  manners  that  this 
letter  to  a  dear  friend  should  conclude,  "  I  am,  Dear 
Sir,  Your  most  obedient  very  humble  Servant." 

The  original  text  of  "  Descriptive  Sketches  "  was 
materially  altered  by  Wordsworth  in  the  edition  of  I 
1 815,  and  much  emended  in  the  editions  of  1820,  1827, 
1832,  1836,  1845,  and  1849.  It  was  considerably 
longer  than  in  the  form  which  it  finally  attained.  Many 
of  the  alterations  were  made  in  the  interest  of  clean- 
ness and  artistic  finish,  but  some  were  attempts  to 
moderate,  discreetly  if  not  prudishly,  one  or  two  passages 
of  glowing  description,  and  to  take  the  very  heart  out 


y 


96  THE  OPEN  ROAD  [chap,  iv 

of  pages  pulsing  with  ardent  enthusiasm  for  liberty. 
This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  literary  value  of  the 
poem,  but  we  may  well  expect  that  some  of  its  eight 
.hundred  lines,  as  originally  printed,  will  bear  witness 
Ito  its  author's  character  and  opinions  in  1790,  even 
•  though  it  was  written  for  the  most  part  in  1 79 1  and  1 792 . 
It  took  all  the  sunshine  and  beauty  of  the  first  few 
days'  march  to  remove  the  scruples  with  which  he  set 
forth: 

Me,  lured  by  hope  her  sorrows  to  remove, 
A  heart,  that  could  not  much  itself  approve, 
O'er  Gallia's  wastes  of  corn  dejected  led. 

The  first  particular  upon  which  he  dwells  is  the  intru- 

ysion  of  a  band  of  Revolutionists  upon  the  quiet  shades 
of  the  Grande  Chartreuse.  The  sight  displeased  him, 
but  he  drew  at  that  time  no  elaborate  lesson  from  it. 
His  powers  of  description  were  put  more  to  the  test  in 
an  effort  to  render  the  effects  of  light  and  shadow  on 
the  mountain-slopes  that  embosom  Lake  Como,  and  to 
reproduce  the  spirit  of  the  lively  peasants  who  inhabit 
its  villages.  His  first  intention,  as  he  tells  us,  was  to 
call  his  poem,  "  Picturesque  Sketches,"  and  it  is  indeed 
a  series  of  painter's  compositions  on  subjects  chosen 
with  regard  to  their  pathetic  effect.  The  material 
thus  worked  up  and  the  mass  of  scenes  rejected  for  this 
occasion,  but  retained  in  memory,  constitute  the  second 
of  the  great  stores  upon  which  he  depended  during 
the  rest  of  his  life.  One  he  accumulated  chiefly  at 
Hawkshead,  the  other  in  the  Alps.  In  the  edition  of 
1793  there  are  touches  that  the  iron  self-restraint  of 
his  later  years  caused  him  to  erase  or  blur — mention  of 
"  fair  dark-eyed  maids,"  who  smiled  from  their  arboured 
gardens  at  the  swift-striding  English  boys.  In  a  strain 
which  in  maturer  years  he  never  permitted  himself  to 
employ,  he  describes  the  languorous  afternoons  and 
thrilled  starlit  evenings  of  an  Italian  summer: 

Slow  glides  the  sail  along  th'  illumined  shore, 
And  steals  into  the  shade  the  lazy  oar. 
Soft  bosoms  breathe  around  contagious  sighs, 
And  amorous  music  on  the  water  dies. 


1790J  DARK-EYED  MAIDS  97 

Heedless  how  Pliny,  musing  here,  survey 'd 
Old  Roman  boats  and  figures  through  the  shade, 
Pale  Passion,  overpower'd,  retires  and  woos 
The  thicket,  where  th'  unlisten'd  stock-dove  coos. 

And  again,  in  a  passage  only  partly  reproduced  in 
later  editions,  we  feel  the  same  warmth,  and  at  the 
same  time  observe  a  reference  to  the  political  subjec- 
tion of  Italy: 

Farewell  !  those  forms  that,  in  the  noon-tide  shade, 
Rest,  near  their  little  plots  of  wheaten  glade; 
Those  steadfast  eyes,  that  beating  breasts  inspire 
To  throw  the  "  sultry  ray  "  of  young  Desire; 
Those  lips,  whose  tides  of  fragrance  come,  and  go, 
Accordant  to  the  cheek's  unquiet  glow; 
Those  shadowy  breasts  in  love's  soft  light  array'd, 
And  rising,  by  the  moon  of  passion  sway'd. 
Thy  fragrant  gales  and  lute-resounding  streams, 
Breathe  o'er  the  failing  soul  voluptuous  dreams; 
While  Slavery,  forcing  the  sunk  mind  to  dwell 
On  joys  that  might  disgrace  the  captive's  cell, 
Her  shameless  timbrel  shakes  along  thy  marge, 
And  winds  between  thine  isles  the  vocal  barge. 

The  strokes  with  which  he  depicts  the  scenery  of  the 
Italian  lakes  are  finer  and  firmer  than  those  with  which 
he  essays  to  render  the  high  Alps.  His  treatment  of 
the  former  is  more  detached.  Except  for  an  occasional 
reflection,  his  attitude  is  one  of  pure  enjoyment.  With 
his  observation  of  the  mountains,  however,  he  mingles 
many  varying  moods  and  many  references  to  Swiss 
history,  and  in  his  Notes  he  admits  his  indebtedness 
to  other  writers.  He  has  caught,  however,  with  a  high 
degree  of  success,  the  two  main  aspects  of  the  Alps: 
their  awfulness  and  their  serenity/  Furthermore,  it 
should  be  noted  as  a  mark  of  originality  that  he  describes 
the  life  of  poor  and  humble  people  without  a  trace  of 
condescension.  This  attitude  was  as  yet  so  rare  in 
English  authors  as  to  be  almost  novel.  He  paints  with 
that  kind  of  sympathy  which  really  shares  the  feeling 
of  its  objects.  He  even  puts  himself  in  the  place  of 
the  superstitious  pilgrims  to  the  wonder-working  image 
at  Einsiedeln,  and  in  a  tone  of  dejection  that  is  very 
*■  7 


98  THE  OPEN  ROAD  [chap,  iv 

surprising  if  we  forget  his  extreme  youth  and  the  senti- 
mental fashion  of  the  times,  and  altogether  unlike  him, 

cries : 

Without  one  hope  her  written  griefs  to  blot. 
Save  in  the  land  where  all  things  are  forgot, 
My  heart,  alive  to  transports  long  unknown, 
Half  wishes  your  delusion  were  its  own. 

The  sight  of  half-starved  peasants  in  the  Vale  of 
Chamonix  leads  to  the  strain  with  which  the  poem 
ends,  the  thought  that  poverty  and  disease  are  the 
children  of  tyranny.  He  burned  to  free  Savoy  from  her 
oppressors.  Happiness,  he  declares,  is  found  only 
where  freedom  smiles  encouragement. 

In  the  wide  range  of  many  a  weary  round, 
Still  have  my  pilgrim  feet  unfailing  found, 
As  despot  courts  their  blaze  of  gems  display, 
E'en  by  the  secret  cottage  far  away 
The  lily  of  domestic  joy  decay; 
While  Freedom's  farthest  hamlets  blessings  share, 
Found  still  beneath  her  smile  and  only  there. 

; 

This  may  not  be  good  poetry,  but  it  sounds  like  heart- 
felt conviction.  Then  follows  an  apostrophe  to  France, 
which  echoes  his  thoughts  of  1791  and  1792,  rather  than 
those  of  1 790 : 

And  thou  !   fair  favoured  region  !  which  my  soul 
Shall  love,  till  Life  has  broke  her  golden  bowl, 
Till  Death's  cold  touch  her  cistern -wheel  assail, 
And  vain  regret  and  vain  desire  shall  fail. 


Yet,  hast  thou  found  that  Freedom  spreads  her  pow'r 
Beyond  the  cottage  hearth,  the  cottage  door : 
All  nature  smiles  ;  and  owns  beneath  her  eyes 
Her  fields  peculiar,  and  peculiar  skies. 

Under  these  laboured  and  unsuccessful  phrases  may 
be  discerned  a  strength  of  belief  and  a  fervour  of  zeal 
which  were  just  as  real  as  if  they  had  received  lucid  and 
compressed  expression.  France,  he  meant,  was  happy 
because  she  was  free,  visibly  and  demonstrably  happier 
than  other  lands.     Her  mill-wheels  clacked  more  merrily, 


i79o]  REPUBLICAN   FERVOUR  99 

her  rivers  rippled  with  brighter  blue  and  cleaner  white, 
her  farmyard  cocks  sent  forth  a  louder  challenge  : 

The  measured  echo  of  the  distant  flail 
Winded  in  sweeter  cadence  down  the  vale ; 
A  more  majestic  tide  the  water  roll'd, 
And  glowed  the  sun-gilt  groves  in  richer  gold. 

He  hails  exultantly  the  prospect  of  her  war  with  "  Con- 
quest, Avarice,  and  Pride,"  and  prays  God  to  grant  that 
"  every  sceptred  child  of  clay,"  who  attempts  in  his 
presumption  to  stem  the  tide  of  Freedom,  shall 

With  all  his  creature  sink — to  rise  no  more. 

These  terms  were  much  moderated  and  qualified  and 
generally  pulled  about  in  the  course  of  that  censorship 
which  the  Wordsworth  of  later  years  exercised  over 
his  early  poems.  Read  in  its  original  form,  "  Descrip- 
tive Sketches  "  confirms  his  statement  to  his  sister 
that  he  was  a  perfect  enthusiast  in  his  admiration  of 
nature  in  all  her  original  shapes.  He  was  correct  in 
thinking  that  perhaps  scarcely  a  day  of  his  life  should 
pass  in  which  he  should  not  derive  some  happiness  from 
the  images  gathered  on  his  journey.  The  lovely  forms 
and  flashing  eyes  of  which  he  caught  a  glimpse  at  the 
Lake  of  Como  were  accountable  for  a  "  thousand  dreams 
of  happiness  which  might  be  enjoyed  upon  its  banks, 
if  heightened  by  conversation  and  the  exercise  of  the 
social  affections."  The  poem  shows  with  what  sym- 
pathy of  heart  and  acquiescence  of  the  mind  he  shared 
the  emotions  of  the  French  "  at  the  time  when  the 
whole  nation  was  mad  with  joy  in  consequence  of  the 
revolution."  Several  of  the  "  many  delightful  scenes, 
where  the  interest  of  the  picture  was  owing  solely  to 
this  cause,"  he  described  from  twelve  to  fifteen  years 
later  in  "  The  Prelude,"  with  a  mastery  he  did  not  com- 
mand at  the  time  he  wrote  "  Descriptive  Sketches." 
The  style  is  immeasurably  heightened,  and  the  record 
is  no  longer  one  of  mere  sensations  chiefly,  but  of 
imagination  brooding  over  incidents  of  life  and  forms  of 
outward  beauty,  and  making  them  a  part  ot  the  poet's 
soul.     The  well-known  opening  of  this  famous  portion 


ioo  THE  OPEN  ROAD  [chap,  iv 

of  "  The  Prelude  "  explains  more  eloquently,  if  not 
more  clearly,  his  two  reasons  for  making  the  journey  :* 

When  the  third  summer  freed  us  from  restraint, 

A  youthful  friend,  he  too  a  mountaineer, 

Not  slow  to  share  my  wishes,  took  his  staff, 

And  sallying  forth,  we  journeyed  side  by  side, 

Bound  to  the  distant  Alps.     A  hardy  slight 

Did  this  unprecedented  course  imply 

Of  college  studies  and  their  set  rewards; 

Nor  had,  in  truth,  the  scheme  been  formed  by  me 

Without  uneasy  forethought  of  the  pain, 

The  censures,  and  ill-omening  of  those 

To  whom  my  worldly  interests  were  dear. 

But  Nature  then  was  sovereign  in  my  mind, 

And  mighty  forms,  seizing  a  youthful  fancy, 

Had  given  a  charter  to  irregular  hopes. 

In  any  age  of  uneventful  calm 

Among  the  nations,  surely  would  my  heart 

Have  been  possessed  by  similar  desire; 

But  Europe  at  that  time  was  thrilled  with  joy, 

France  standing  on  the  top  of  golden  hours, 

And  human  nature  seeming  born  again. 

In  "  The  Prelude  "  the  journey  is  hastily  narrated 
except  for  five  broad  descriptive  passages.  The  first 
of  thesef  depicts  the  release  of  "benevolence  and 
blessedness,"  the  triumphal  arches,  the  garlands,  the 
dances  of  liberty,  the  overflowing  fraternity,  which 
they  witnessed  in  the  northern  French  provinces,  then 
rejoicing  in  the  first  anniversary  of  the  fall  of  the  Bastille. 
The  second  relates  J  how  the  young  wayfarers,  sailing 
down  the  Rhone  from  Lyons  to  St.  Vallier,  were  wel- 
comed into  the  society  of 

a  merry  crowd 
Of  those  emancipated,  a  blithe  host 
Of  travellers,  chiefly  delegates,  returning 
From  the  great  spousals,  newly  solemnized 
At  their  chief  city,  in  the  sight  of  Heaven. 

These  were  probably  some  of  the  representatives  of 
Marseilles  and  their  friends  going  home  after  the  Fes- 
tival of  the  Federation,  on  July  14,  when  the  King 
and  Lafayette,  as  commander  of  the  National  Guard, 

*"  Prelude,"  VI.  322.  f  Ibid.,  342-374.  J  Ibid.,  384-414. 


i79o]  DOWN  THE  RHONE  101 

in  the  presence  of  the  Queen,  the  Dauphin,  and  one 
hundred  thousand  delegates,  had  sworn  fidelity  to  the 
Constitution  before  the  Altar  of  the  Country  on  the 
Champ  de  Mars.  Englishmen,  as  children  of  a  free 
nation,  were  in  high  favour  in  France.  Wordsworth 
and  his  companion  were  received  with  open  arms  by 
these  excited  southerners : 

Guests  welcome  almost  as  the  angels  were 
To  Abraham  of  old. 

Together  they  landed,  probably  at  Coudrieu,  to  take 
their  evening  meal.  Every  tongue  was  loosed.  There 
were  brave  speeches  of  amity  and  glee.  There  was 
dancing  hand  in  hand  around  the  table.  At  early 
dawn  the  voyage  was  renewed  and  the  enthusiasm 
commenced  again,  lasting  till  the  young  men  quitted 
the  glad  throng  at  St.  Vallier  to  pursue  their  way  on 
foot.  The  third  passage*  repeats,  with  maturer  reflec- 
tions, his  thoughts  on  seeing  the  Grande  Chartreuse 
on  a  day  when  its  sanctity  was  rudely  profaned  b}r  a 
band  of  reformers.  The  fourth f  is  an  inadequate 
attempt  to  catch  the  spirit  of  the  Alps  and  the 
Swiss  people.  Wnat  he  saw  of  the  mountaineers 
confirmed  his  rapidly  forming  political  opinions,  and 
he  cries : 

With  such  a  book 
Before  our  eyes,  we  could  not  choose  but  read 
Lessons  of  genuine  brotherhood,  the  plain 
And  universal  lesson  of  mankind. 

In  the  fifth  J  he  elaborates  an  episode,  not  specially 
significant,  of  their  walk  above  Lake  Como. 

In  the  midst  of  these  he  introduces  a  sublime  account  § 
of  a  spiritual  event,  a  happening  within  his  own  soul. 
The  travellers  suddenly  learned,  from  the  downward 
dropping  of  a  stream,  that  they  had  crossed  the  Alps. 
When  attention  has  been  fixed  for  many  hours  upon 
the  face  of  nature  in  a  wild  and  difficult  region,  a  dis- 
covery of  this  sort  may  possess  a  startling  significance. 

*   "  Prelude,"  VI.  414-488.  f  Ibid.,  499-540. 

X  Ibid.,  691-726.  §  Ibid.,  557-640. 


102  THE  OPEN  ROAD  [chap,  rv 

But  what  struck  Wordsworth  was  the  fact  that  in  this 
moment,  when  nature  seemed  very  real,  his  own  mind 
seemed  equally  real,  and  distinct  from  nature.  At 
first,  he  says,  he  was  lost,  "  halted  without  an  effort  to 
break  through  "  the  mystery  of  this  abrupt  estrange- 
ment from  nature,  who  had  been  his  intimate  comrade 
and  apparently  of  the  same  stuff  with  him.  The  first 
moment  of  bewilderment  over,  his  soul  rose  triumphant 
in  self-consciousness.  He  recognized  her  glory.  She 
was  not  then,  after  all,  dependent  on  sense  and  subject 
to  time  and  space ;  and  assured  of  this  he  sang : 

Our  destiny,  our  being's  heart  and  home, 
Is  with  infinitude,  and  only  there; 
With  hope  it  is,  hope  that  can  never  die, 
Effort,  and  expectation,  and  desire, 
And  something  evermore  about  to  be. 

The  road,  having  reached  the  summit  of  the  Alpine 
pass,  cannot  go  higher.  The  stream  must  flow  into 
Italy.  North  must  remain  North,  and  South  be  ever 
South;  but  no  limit  is  decreed  to  human  souls.  With 
this  thought  of  the  transcendence  of  mind,  there  flashed 
upon  him  a  new  conception  of  the  meaning  of  visible 
things.  The  grand  and  terrible  features  of  the  gorge 
through  which  he  descended 

Were  all  like  workings  of  one  mind,  the  features 

Of  the  same  face,  blossoms  upon  one  tree; 

Characters  of  the  great  Apocalypse, 

The  types  and  symbols  of  Eternity, 

Of  first,  and  last,  and  midst,  and  without  end. 

The  day  was  an  epoch  in  his  life,  and  the  passage  in 
which  he  recorded  this  experience  is  one  of  the  most 
significant  in  all  his  works. 

Lastly,  in  a  tone  quite  at  variance  with  the  strain 
that  ends  "  Descriptive  Sketches,"  he  attributes  his 
interest  in  the  new  stir  that  animated  France,  not  so 
much  to  Revolutionary  principles  as  to  "  the  indepen- 
dent spirit  of  pure  youth,"  called  forth  by  the  widening 
prospects  of  fresh  glories  in  the  universe  :* 

*  "  Prelude,"  VI.  754. 


i7ot]  THE  GREAT  EXPECTANCY  103 

A  glorious  time, 
A  happy  time  that  was;  triumphant  looks 
Were  then  the  common  language  of  all  eyes  ; 
As  if  awaked  from  sleep,  the  Nations  hailed 
Their  great  expectancy :  the  fife  of  war 
Was  then  a  spirit-stirring  sound  indeed, 
A  blackbird's  whistle  in  a  budding  grove. 
We  left  the  Swiss  exulting  in  the  fate 
Of  their  near  neighbours;  and  when  shortening  fast 
Our  pilgrimage,  nor  distant  far  from  home, 
We  crossed  the  Brabant  armies  on  the  fret 
For  battle  in  the  cause  of  Liberty. 
A  stripling,  scarcely  of  the  household  then 
Of  social  life,  I  looked  upon  these  things 
As  from  a  distance;  heard,  and  saw,  and  felt, 
Was  touched,  but  with  no  intimate  concern. 

It  is  probable,  though  not  certain,  that  Wordsworth 
returned  to  England  immediately  on  reaching  Calais, 
about  October  10.  He  visited  his  sister  at  Forncett  in 
the  Christmas  holidays.*  He  was  graduated  Bachelor 
of  Arts  on  January  21,  1791.  His  sister  believed  he 
might  have  obtained  a  fellowship  had  he  tried,  and 
doubtless  if  she  thought  so,  her  uncles  thought  so  too. 
In  a  letter  to  Miss  Pollard,  from  Forncett,  dated  Sunday 
morning,  June  26,  1791,  she  says: 

"  William,  you  may  have  heard,  lost  the  chance 
(indeed  the  certainty)  of  a  fellowship,  by  not  combating 
his  inclinations.  He  gave  way  to  his  natural  dislike  to 
studies  so  dry  as  many  parts  of  mathematics,  conse- 
quently could  not  succeed  at  Cambridge.  He  reads 
Italian,  Spanish,  French,  Greek,  Latin,  and  English,  but 
never  opens  a  mathematical  book.  We  promise  our- 
selves much  pleasure  from  reading  Italian  together  at 
some  time.  He  wishes  that  I  was  acquainted  with  the 
Italian  poets,  but  how  much  I  have  to  learn  which  plain 
English  will  teach  me  !  William  has  a  great  attachment 
for  poetry;  so  indeed  has  Kit,  but  William  particularly, 
which  is  not  the  most  likely  thing  to  produce  nis  advance- 
ment in  the  world.  His  pleasures  are  chiefly  of  the 
imagination.     He    is    never    so    happy    as    when    in    a 

*  This  is  the  visit  referred  to  in  Dorothy's  letter  of  June  16,  1793.  See 
'  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,"  I.  55,  and  also  p.  24,  where  "  six 
months  "  should  be  "  six  weeks."  It  is  "  weeks  "  in  the  original  manu- 
script, and  that  was  about  the  length  of  the  Christmas  holidays. 


104  THE  OPEN  ROAD  [chap,  iv 

beautiful  country.  Do  not  think  in  what  I  have  said 
that  he  reads  not  at  all,  for  he  does  read  a  great  deal; 
and  not  only  poetry,  and  other  languages  he  is  acquainted 
with,  but  history,  etc.,  etc." 

What  delightful  chatter !  What  touching  anxiety  for 
her  brother's  reputation  !  Dorothy  will  not  have  Miss 
Pollard  think  him  less  than  perfect,  even  though  he  has 
an  aversion  from  mathematics  and  has  not  won  college 
honours.  From  a  statement  she  made  in  a  previous 
letter  to  Miss  Pollard,  written  at  Forncett  on  May  23, 
it  appears  that  this  notable  scholar  had  not  spent  even 
his  last  Christmas  holidays  at  work  in  Cambridge,  but 
had  preferred  her  society  to  that  of  the  mathematicians. 
Her  romantic  heart  doubtless  excused  him  to  itself. 
She  writes : 

"  I  rise  about  six  every  morning,  and,  as  I  have  no 
companion,  walk  with  a  book  till  half-past  eight,  if  the 
weather  permits;  if  not,   I  read  in  the  house.     Some- 
times we  walk  in  the  mornings,  but  seldom  more  than 
an   hour,   just   before   dinner.     After   tea   we   all   walk 
together  till  about  eight,  and  I  then  walk  alone,  as  long 
as  I  can,  in  the  garden.     I  am  particularly  fond  of  a 
moonlight  or  twilight  walk.     It  is  at  this  time  I  think 
most  of  my  absent  friends.     My  brother  William  was 
with  us  six  weeks  in  the  depth  of  winter.     You  may 
recollect  that  at  that  time  the  weather  was  exceedingly 
mild.     We  used  to  walk  every  morning  about  two  hours ; 
and  every  evening  we  went  into  the  country  at  four  or 
half-past  four,  and  used  to  pace  backwards  and  forwards 
till  six.     Unless  you  have  accustomed  yourself  to  this 
kind  of  walking,  you  will  have  no  idea  that  it  can  be 
pleasant;  but  I  assure  you  it  is  most  delightful,  and  if 
you  and  I  happened  to  be  together  in  the  country  (as 
we  probably  may),  we  shall  try  how  you  like  my  plan, 
if  you  are  not  afraid  of  the  evening  air." 


CHAPTER  V 

LONDON— ADRIFT 

In  February,  1 791 ,  the  poet,  not  yet  twenty-one  years 
old,  went  to  London,  probably  with  no  definite  plan. 
The  following  summary,  at  the  opening  of  the  ninth 
book  of  "  The  Prelude,"  gives  but  a  very  loose  account 
of  the  time  he  spent  there: 

Free  as  a  colt  at  pasture  on  the  hill, 

I  ranged  at  large,  through  London's  wide  domain, 

Month  after  month.     Obscurely  did  I  live, 

Not  seeking  frequent  intercourse  with  men, 

By  literature,  or  elegance,  or  rank, 

Distinguished.     Scarcely  was  a  year  thus  spent 

Ere  I  forsook  the  crowded  solitude, 

With  less  regret  for  its  luxurious  pomp. 

And  all  the  nicely-guarded  shows  of  art, 

Than  for  the  humble  book-stalls  in  the  streets, 

Exposed  to  eye  and  hand  where'er  I  turned. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  lived  verj'-  much  less  than  a 
year  in  London.  The  sources  of  our  knowledge  of  this 
period  are  few,  and  some  of  them  are  misleading.  The 
seventh  and  eighth  books  of  the  great  autobiographical 
poem  contain  many  passages  reflecting,  after  an  interval 
of  at  least  fourteen  years,  some  of  the  impressions  made 
upon  him  by  the  sights  of  the  city,  but  all  carefully 
chosen  to  illustrate  "  the  growth  of  a  poet's  mind," 
and  particularly  to  show  how  the  love  of  nature,  by 
which  he  means,  in  this  connection,  country  scenes  and 
sounds,  remained  supreme.  The  incidents  are  not' 
important  in  themselves,  nor  do  they  furnish  much  in- 
formation as  to  his  reasons  for  being  in  London  and 
his   main    occupation    there.     Apart   from   their   effect 

105 


106  LONDON— ADRIFT  [chap,  v 

on  his  poetic  faculties,  which  can  scarcely,  after  all, 
have  been  comparable  in  importance  to  the  influence 
of  Hawkshead  and  Cambridge,  they  were  purely  external 
and  fleeting,  the  things  every  fairly  observant  country- 
bred  youth  would  notice  in  the  streets  and  public  haunts 
of  town.  His  effort  to  set  them  forth  as  contributions 
to  his  poetic  development  seems  a  little  forced.  His 
use  of  them  is  too  systematic  and  reveals  too  clearly 
his  underlying  design,  in  a  way  that  suggests  pedantry. 
The  want  of  spontaneity  in  these  passages  affects 
the  language,  which  is  occasionally  obscure,  the  sentences 
being  long  and  complex.  He  invites  us  again  and  again 
to  observe  the  precise  degree  in  which  this  or  that 
quality  of  soul,  now  Fancy,  now  Imagination,  now 
Love  of  Man,  now  Sense  of  Majesty  and  Power,  was 
affected  by  some  happening,  which  one  hesitates  to 
call  trivial  only  because  it  caught  the  eye  of  Words- 
worth. And  the  phrases  are  huddled  back  upon  them- 
selves, in  these  passages,  as  if  for  an  onward  rush,  which 
does  not  come.  On  the  other  hand,  no  poet  before  him 
had  ever  described  with  the  same  combination  of  sim- 
plicity, exactness,  zest,  and  elevation,  the  every-day 
incidents  of  street-life.  Where  they  are  not  spoiled  by 
too  much  moralizing  reference  to  his  own  inward  growth, 
these  descriptions  are  delightful,  and  mark  a  decisive 
step  in  English  poetry. 

Except  for  two  or  three  short  visits  from  Cambridge, 
it  would  appear  that  Wordsworth  had  never  seen  London 
until  this  time.  The  wealth  of  sensations  which  could 
be  tasted  there  might  well  have  seemed  to  justify 
him  in  spending  a  few  months  in  the  metropolis  as 
a  finishing  touch  to  his  scholastic  education.  At 
least,  he  offers  no  other  excuse,  but  says  that  after 
quitting  every  comfort  of  that  privileged  ground,  the 
university,  he  was 

Well  pleased  to  pitch  a  vagrant  tent  among 
The  unfenced  regions  of  society. 

His  want  of  occupation  did  not  trouble  him.  With 
all    the    imprudence    of    boyhood    and    with    a    poet's 


i79i]  IMPRUDENT  VENTURE  107 

valuation  of  whatsoever  might  feed  his  mind,  regard- 
less of  bodily  sustenance,  he  deliberatelv  took  one 
more  vacation  :* 

undetermined  to  what  course  of  life 
I  should  adhere,  and  seeming  to  possess 
A  little  space  of  intermediate  time 
At  full  command,  to  London  first  I  turned, 
In  no  disturbance  of  excessive  hope, 
By  personal  ambition  unenslaved, 
Frugal  as  there  was  need,  and,  though  self-willed, 
From  dangerous  passions  free. 

It  was  an  unpremeditated,  natural  piece  of  self-indul- 
gence, or  a  yielding,  rather,  to  the  impulses  which  always 
ruled  him,  and  which  many  of  his  biographers  have 
overlooked.  His  whole  life  was  independent,  but 
sudden  outbreaks  of  extreme  and  wayward  impatience 
of  restraint  frequently  give  sharper  accent  to  its  general 
tenor.  At  such  times  he  was  stubborn,  bold,  adven- 
turous, improvident.  He  had  no  home  and  no  parents! 
and  his  elder  brother  was  too  young  to  exercise  an}| 
authority  over  him. 

From  childhood  the  thought  of  London  had  held  him 
by  a  chain  "  of  wonder  and  obscure  delight."  None 
of  the  golden  cities  of  romance,  not  Rome,  Alcairo, 
Babylon,  or  Persepolis,  could,  to  his  imagination,  be 
so  wonderful.  He  tells  how  puzzled  he  was  by  the  flat 
recital  of  a  schoolmate,  a  crippled  boy,  whose  uncommon 
fortune  it  had  been  to  go  to  that  great  city,  but  who 
returned  to  the  North  unchanged  in  look  and  air.  In 
his  first  year  at  Cambridge  he  went  up  to  London  on  a 
stage-coach,  and  could  scarcely  believe  it  possible  that 
mere  external  things  had  power  so  to  elevate  and  depress 
the  spirit  as  the  roar  and  movements  of  the  towni 
alternately  raised  and  crushed  his.  It  is  not  possible! 
to  distinguish  the  impressions  received  during  this  short 
visit  from  those  received  in  1 791 ,  or,  indeed,  from  others 
that  he  may  have  gained  later.  He  mentions  the 
obvious  "  broad  day  wonders  permanent,"  the  river, 
the   Tower,  the   Monument,  the  whispering   gallery   of 

*  "  Prelude."  VII.  58. 


108  LONDON— ADRIFT  [chap,  v 

St.  Paul's,  the  tombs  in  the  Abbey,  and  admits  almost 
humorously  that  he  was  oftentimes, 

In  spite  of  strongest  disappointment,  pleased 
Through  courteous  self-submission,  as  a  tax 
Paid  to  the  object  by  prescriptive  right. 

The  ever-moving  spectacle  of  the  streets  interested  him 
most,  and  he  gives  a  catalogue  of  details,  a  hundred 
short  but  telling  strokes  with  only  here  and  there  an 
observation  that  goes  below  the  surface,  as  where  he 
notes  the  face,  "  hard  and  strong  in  lineaments  and  red 
with  over-toil,"  of  the  legless  cripple  stumping  on  his 
arms.  Popular  shows  of  every  sort  attracted  him — 
panoramas,  pantomimes,  giants,  dwarfs,  clowns,  con- 
jurers, which,  he  is  pleased  to  say  in  retrospect,  gave  him 
delight  because  they  enabled  him 

To  note  the  laws  of  progress  and  belief. 

The  theatre  drew  him  with  a  more  potent  spell.  From 
his  description,  it  would  seem  that  most  of  the  plays 
he  heard  were  tearful  melodramas,  although  he  mentions 
Mrs.  Siddons  "  in  the  fulness  of  her  power."  He  felt 
the  charm  of  the  playhouses,  whose  very  gilding,  lamps, 
and  mean  upholstery,  held  him  by  the  glamour  of  their 
association  with  the  pageantry  of  romance.  His  apti- 
tude for  these  pleasures  had  been  retained  from  times 
at  home  when  some  rude  barn  was  tricked  out  for  the 
proud  use  of  a  theatre.  He  tells  us,  with  one  of  those 
exact  reminiscences  of  a  mood  of  childhood  which  abound 
in  his  poetry  as  in  no  other,  that  on  those  occasions, 
as  he  sat  enraptured  in  the  barn,  an  unexpected  glimpse 
of  daylight  through  a  chink  in  the  old  wall  gladdened  him 
by  the  contrast  it  afforded.  Who  has  not  thus,  in  child- 
hood, clutched  at  humdrum  reality  to  deepen  the  joy  of 
illusion  ?  Hardly  more  real  than  figures  on  the  stage 
seemed  to  him  the  judges  in  the  courts  of  law  and  the 
debaters  in  Parliament.  He  heard  Burke,  but  whether 
the  fine  passage  on  his  eloquence  and  his  principles 
which  records  the  fact  is  not  due  to  long-subsequent 
reflection  may  well  be  doubted.     It  was  the  Burke  of 


i79i]  LISTENING  TO  BURKE  109 

'93  and  '94,  seen,  moreover,  through  ten  additional 
years  of  chastened  reflection,  whom  he  depicted  in 
lines  512  to  543  of  Book  VII.  of  "  The  Prelude,"  which 
entirely  misrepresent  Wordsworth's  feelings  in  1791. 

The  great  statesman  had  published,  only  a  few  months 
before  Wordsworth's  arrival  in  London,  his  "  Reflec- 
tions on  the  Revolution  in  France."  The  immediate 
occasion  of  this  work  was  a  sermon  by  the  Rev.  Richard 
Price,  a  Nonconformist  minister,  before  the  Revolution 
Society,  a  club  originally  formed  to  celebrate  the 
"  glorious  Revolution  "  of  1688.  This  society  had  not 
only  listened  to  a  discourse  from  Dr.  Price  in  praise  of 
the  French  Revolution,  but  had  forwarded  to  the 
National  Assembly  an  address  which  Burke  declared  to 
have  sprung  from  the  principles  of  that  sermon.  The 
nobleness  of  the  political  philosophy  embodied  in  Burke's 
famous  pamphlet  contrasts  shiningly  with  his  sarcastic 
attack  on  Dr.  Price,  which  is  mean  and  illiberal.  And 
to  anyone  who  had  even  a  faint  idea  of  how  just,  and, 
indeed,  how  necessary,  was  the  French  uprising,  and 
how  extravagant  and  unfeeling  was  the  Queen  over 
whose  fate  Burke  became  eloquent,  his  rhetoric  must 
have  seemed  sadly  out  of  place.  But  Arthur  Young  did 
not  publish  his  "  Travels  in  France,"  till  1792,  and 
probably  no  other  Englishman  could  have  refuted  Burke 
in  detail.  The  deplorable  effect  of  his  "  Reflections  " 
in  precipitating  war  between  England  and  France,  and 
thus  helping  to  engender  the  Terror,  might,  however, 
have  been  foreseen.  This  book,  more  than  anything 
else,  turned  the  current  of  English  opinion,  which  had 
not  yet  been  decidedly  unfavourable  to  the  Revolution. 
It  put  majestic  precepts  and  august  principles  into  the 
mouths  of  stupid  people,  who  used  them  as  a  covering 
for  prejudice  and  ignorance  and  panic.  As  John  Morley 
has  said : 

"  Before  the  Reflections  was  published  the  predomi- 
nant sentiment  in  England  had  been  one  of  mixed 
astonishment  and  sympathy.  Pitt  had  expressed  this 
common  mood  both  in  the  House  of  Commons  and  in 
private.     It  was  impossible  for  England  not  to  be  amazed 


no  LONDON— ADRIFT  [chap.v 

at  the  uprising  of  the  nations  whom  she  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  think  of  as  willing  slaves,  and  it  was  impossible 
for  her,  when  the  scene  did  not  happen  to  be  the 
American  colonies  or  Ireland,  not  to  profess  good  wishes 
for  the  cause  of  emancipation  all  over  the  world.  Apart 
from  the  natural  admiration  of  a  free  people  for  a  neigh- 
bour struggling  to  be  free,  England  saw  no  reason  to 
lament  a  blow  at  a  sovereign  and  a  government  who  had 
interfered  on  the  side  of  her  insurgent  colonies.  To 
this  easy  state  of  mind  Burke's  book  put  an  immediate 
end." 

Those  who  seized  most  greedily  upon  his  denuncia- 
tion of  the  popular  excesses  in  France,  and  his  pro- 
phecies that  the  Revolution  would  fail,  were  precisely 
the  persons  least  able  to  comprehend  the  great  principles 
upon  which  his  argument  was  based.  As  Morley  again 
says:  "  It  is  when  we  come  to  the  rank  and  file  of 
reaction  that  we  find  it  hard  to  forgive  the  man  of 
genius  who  made  himself  the  organ  of  their  selfishness, 
their  timidity,  and  their  blindness."  By  the  time  that 
Wordsworth  heard  him  in  Parliament,  Burke,  who  had 
once  been  an  object  of  derision  and  fear  to  the  Tory 
party,  had,  through  vindicating  the  all  too  natural 
English  view  of  French  affairs,  become  the  oracle  of 
privilege  and  "  patriotism."  He  spoke,  as  Wordsworth 
accurately  records,  in  defence  of  immemorial  depend- 
encies and  vested  rights,  for  they  were  what  was  meant 
by  "  social  ties  endeared  by  Custom."  The  poet  does 
/not  say  that  he  was  persuaded  at  the  time  that  Burke 
'  was  right,  or  that  he  approved  the  orator's  keen  ridicule 
of  all  systems  built  on  abstract  rights.  We  know  that 
for  six  or  eight  years  to  come  he  disapproved  of  the 
national  policy  which  Burke  did  so  much  to  promote. 
We  know  that  it  was  perhaps  the  deepest  sorrow  of 
his  life  that  his  country  should  have  adopted  such  a 
policy.  And  "  The  Prelude  "  was  written  just  when  a 
reaction  against  his  youthful  ideals  was  most  powerful 
within  him. 

He  heard  the  popular  preachers,  and  was  not  un- 
touched by  the  admonitions  of  some,  though  he  satirizes 
the  affected  manner,  the  fine  dressing,  and  the  senti- 


i79v  STREET  SCENES  in 

mental  oratory,  of  others.  He  glanced  at  the  examples 
of  folly,  vice,  and  extravagance,  which  made  London 
their  domain,  but  lingered  over  sights  of  courage  and 
of  tenderness,  rendered  more  touching  by  contrast. 
One  of  these  he  describes  in  detail  :* 

A  Father — for  he  bore  that  sacred  name — 
Him  saw  I,  sitting  in  an  open  square, 
Upon  a  corner-stone  of  that  low  wall, 
Wherein  were  fixed  the  iron  pales  that  fenced 
A  spacious  grass-plot;  there,  in  silence,  sate 
This  One  Man,  with  a  sickly  babe  outstretched 
Upon  his  knee,  whom  he  had  thither  brought 
For  sunshine,  and  to  breathe  the  fresher  air. 
Of  those  who  passed,  and  me  who  looked  at  him, 
He  took  no  heed ;  but  in  his  brawny  arms 
(The  Artificer  was  to  the  elbow  bare, 
And  from  his  work  this  moment  had  been  stolen) 
He  held  the  child,  and,  bending  over  it, 
As  if  he  were  afraid  both  of  the  6un 
And  of  the  air,  which  he  had  come  to  seek, 
Eyed  the  poor  babe  with  love  unutterable. 

Only  a  few  of  his  observations  of  London  life  are 
developed  with  such  fulness.  This  solitary  passage  in 
"  The  Prelude,"  and  three  or  four  separate  little  poems, 
compose  the  entire  number.  They  are  among  the  first 
sketches  of  a  new  kind  of  poetic  art,  which  has  been 
cultivated  since  by  many  writers,  and  must  be  accounted 
an  artistic  invention  almost  peculiar  to  the  nineteenth 
century.  It  was  deliberately  imitated  from  Words-' 
worth  by  Sainte-Beuve,  who  endeavoured  through 
critical  exposition  of  its  principles,  and  through  concrete 
examples,  to  win  a  place  for  it  in  France.  Victor  Hugo 
very  splendidly,  and  Francois  Coppee  and  others  with 
much  popular  approval,  realized  this  ideal  of  the  critic. 
Johnson's  "  London  "  was  composed  according  to  a 
quite  different  method.  Wordsworth  felt  the.  sensa- 
tion of  kinship  with  passing  unknown  persons,  coupled 
with  the  unhappy  realization  that  each  of  us  is  like  a 
ship  sailing  its  own  course  upon  the  waters.  Interest 
in  man,  but  not  yet  love  of  man,  at  least  not  love  com- 

*   "  Prelude,"  VII.  bus. 


1 1 2  LONDON— ADRIFT  [chap,  v 

parable  to  his  love  of  nature,  grew  within  him.  The 
scenes  of  man's  most  intense  activity  took  possession  of 
his  faculties  quietly,  persistently,  "  with  small  internal 
help  ";  and  so  night  with  its  empty  streets,  unfrequent 
sounds,  and  calm  visitations  of  moon  and  stars,  was  a 
breathing  presence,  and  day  with  its  multitudinous 
roar  and  turmoil  was  like  some  beloved  object.  But, 
say  what  he  will,  it  is  evident  that  the  town  took  far  less 
hold  upon  his  affection,  stirred  shallower  depths  of 
imagination,  and  was  in  itself  less  sufficient,  than  his 
native  hills.  This  is  amply  shown  in  the  contrast 
between  the  description  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Fair, 
near  the  end  of  the  seventh  book,  and  the  description 
of  a  Westmorland  market  in  one  of  the  vales  below 
Helvellyn,  with  which  the  eighth  book  opens.  The 
former  appears  scant  in  loving  detail,  and  rather  per- 
functory, while  the  latter  breathes  at  once  the  spirit  of 
Wordsworth  and  of  rural  life.  He  gave  deep  and 
eloquent  expression  to  his  sense  of  the  futility  of  city 
life  as  a  source  of  spiritual  strength,*  and  it  was  the 
memory  of  more  permanent  powers  that  sustained  him 
"  in  London's  vast  domain."! 

This  inner  calm  and  perception,  which  it  occurs  to  few 
men  to  strive  for,  were  the  highest  good  for  which 
Wordsworth  lived.  All  other  powers  were  in  his 
estimation  secondary.  But  such  as  they  were,  London 
fed  some  of  them.  He  was  taught  by  the  memorials 
piled  up  in  the  ancient  city  to  feel  his  country's  great- 
ness. The  place,  he  says,  "  was  thronged  with  impreg- 
nations." It  feelingly  set  forth  the  unity  of  men.  It 
smote  the  soul  with  the  sublime  idea  that  there  is  among 
men 

One  sense  for  moral  j  udgments,  as  one  eye 

For  the  sun's  light. 

Of  course  it  might  be  said  that  these  inferences  from  the 
effects  of  London  sights  upon  his  mind  were  drawn  long 
afterwards;  and  so  they  were,  in  the  form  they  finally 
took.  But  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  he 
was  capable  of  such  moral  reflection,  and  unwilling  to 

*   "  Prelude,"  VII.  722-730.  7  Ibid.,  760-771. 


i79i]  VISIT  IN  WALES  113 

rest  content  with  mere  sensation,  at  the  time  of  his 
sojourn  in  London. 

There  is  no  trace  in  "  The  Prelude  "  by  which  we 
can  be  sure  of  more  than  one  or  two  things  in  regard  to 
his  ordinary  external  life  at  this  time.  He  was  inde- 
pendent of  the  people  with  whom  he  lodged,  could  come 
and  go  as  he  pleased,  and  had  much  time  to  spend  in  free 
roving.  The  first  streak  of  clear  light  in  the  way  of 
positive  fact  comes,  unfortunately,  after  he  had  left 
London.  It  is  in  a  letter  from  his  sister  to  Miss  Pollard, 
from  Forncett,  May  23,  1 791 .     She  writes: 

"  I  hope  my  brother  William  will  call  at  Halifax  on 
his  way  into  Cumberland.  He  is  now  in  Wales,  where 
he  intends  making  a  pedestrian  tour,  along  with  his  old 
friend  and  companion  Jones,  at  whose  house  he  is  at 
present  staying.  .  .  .  My  aunt  would  tell  you  that  she 
saw  my  brothers  Richard  and  William  in  town." 

The  sojourn  in  London  had  lasted  less  than  four 
months.  How  long  the  young  man  remained  in  Wales 
is  not  known.  He  visited  his  fellow  -  collegian  and 
former  companion  in  foreign  travel,  Robert  Jones,  at 
the  latter's  home,  Plas-yn-llan,  near  Ruthin,  in  Denbigh- 
shire, and  was  with  him,  apparently,  from  the  middle 
of  May  till  about  the  middle  of  September,  and  certainly 
till  August  13.  Together  they  made  another  pedestrian 
tour,  and  saw  "  the  sea-sunsets  which  give  such  splendour 
to  the  Vale  of  Clwyd,  Snowdon,  the  Chair  of  Idris,  the 
quiet  village  of  Bethgelert,  Menai  and  her  Druids, 
the  Alpine  steeps  of  the  Conway,  and  the  still  more 
interesting  windings  of  the  wizard  stream  of  the  Dee."* 

Wordsworth's  most  intimate  friend  at  this  time 
appears  to  have  been  another  fellow-student  just  gradu- 
ated from  Cambridge,  William  Mathews,  elder  son  of  a 
London  bookseller  and  Methodist  local  preacher,  and 
brother  of  Charles  Mathews,  the  comic  actor.  The  latter, 
in  his  "  Memoirs,"  gives  the  following  description  of  him: 

"  William,  my  brother,  was  my  senior  by  seven  years, 
and,  being  intended  for  the  church,  of  course  looked  to 

*  From  the  Dedicatory  Letter  to  the  Rev.   Robert  Jones,  Fellow  oi 
St.  John's  College,  Cambridge,  prefixed  to  "  Descriptive  Sketches." 
I.  8 


ii4  LONDON— ADRIFT  [chap,  v 

a  college  education.  .  .  .  My  dear  and  excellent  brother 
had  great  natural  talents,  and  was  indefatigable  in  his 
search  after  knowledge.  He  was  essentially  a  gentleman 
in  all  his  feelings;  and  his  earliest  associates  were  high, 
if  not  in  rank,  certainly  in  talent.  The  pursuits  that 
engaged  him  were  not  those  of  other  youths — he  was 
devoted  to  profound  and  abstruse  studies,  mathematics, 
and  had  an  absolute  thirst  for  languages,  six  of  which 
he  could  speak  or  read  before  he  was  twenty  years  of 
age.  To  gain  perfection  in  these,  his  time  was  occupied 
day  after  day,  night  after  night.  The  school  exercises, 
of  course,  were  only  Latin,  Greek,  and  Hebrew;  French 
was  supplied  by  my  father's  means;  but  at  the  time  I 
was  young  enough  to  sleep  in  the  same  room  with  him, 
he  rose  at  four  or  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  to  study 
Italian  and  Spanish ;  of  which  pursuits  he  was  so  un- 
ostentatious that  he  threatened  me  with  the  penalty  of 
his  displeasure  if  I  revealed  to  any  one  the  hours  he  stole 
from  sleep.  Thus  qualified  at  a  very  early  age,  he 
entered  Pembroke  College,  Cambridge,  already  an  ac- 
complished gentleman." 

It  was  a  sore  point  with  Charles  Mathews  that  their 
father  tried  to  create  "  a  mortifying  distinction  between 
the  rank  in  society  of  hisrtwo  sons — the  eldest7a  gentle- 
man, the  youngest  a  tradesman."  They  both  attended 
Merchant  Taylors'  School,  where  they  took  part  in  a 
rebellion  against  the  masters,  which  led  to  the  abolition 
of  flogging.  Their  home  was  in  London.  Their  father 
was  a  "  serious  "  bookseller,  a  rigid  Calvinist,  the  main 
pillar  in  one  of  Lady  Huntingdon's  chapels,  and  the  victim 
of  a  horde  of  fanatical  preachers,  yet  mild  and  liberal 
withal  in  disposition.  Their  mother  was  "  strict  in  her 
adherence  to  the  tenets  of  the  Church  of  England." 
The  happiness  of  parents  and  children  alike  was  often 
troubled  by  the  intrusion  of  this  or  that  canting  ex- 
horter,  and  the  boys  grew  up  detesting  what  they  termed 
"  superstition."  It  is  related  of  Charles  Mathews  that 
he  was  in  the  habit  of  impersonating  Coleridge. 

Wordsworth's  letters  to  William  Mathews  are  the  only 
ones  in  which  we  see  the  poet  indulge  a  vein  of  youthful 
levity.  Beginning  in  this  tone  of  irresponsible  banter, 
they  soon  become  more  serious,  though  not  less  out- 


i79i]  WILLIAM  MATHEWS  115 

spoken.     Mathews    entertained    republican    principles. 
He  was   apparently   unsettled   in   life  and   desirous  of 
becomine    a    journalist.     In    his    correspondence    with 
him,  Wordsworth   expresses    himself   more   plainly   on 
public  questions  and  on  the  subject  of  his  own  course 
of  life  than  anywhere  else.     As  was  natural  beween  young 
men  of  the  same  age  who  had  been  at  the  university 
together,  there  was  no  concealment  of  opinion.     Their 
interchange  of  letters  continued  till  1796,  at  least,  cover- 
ing the  most  obscure  period   of  Wordsworth's  life,  a 
period  that  was  probably,  to  the  few  persons  who  knew 
him  well,  the  most  interesting.     Time,  and  very  likely 
a  desire  on  his  part  and  that  of  his  family  to  cover  his 
actions  and  sufferings  in  these  years  with  oblivion,  have 
left  us  only  a  few  of  his  letters  to  Mathews,  but  the}'-  are 
very   significant.     The   young   poet's    temper   was   im- 
petuous.    His  self-will  was  strong.     He  felt  the  impulse 
of  vagrant  passions.     His  principles  were  of  the  kind 
that  English  society  stamped  with  disapproval,  as  dan- 
gerous   and   subversive.     And   in    1791    he  had  as  yet 
gone  through  or  witnessed  no  experiences  to  damp  his 
ardour  and  arouse  misgivings.     Mathews  went  to  the 
West  Indies  to  practise  law,  probably  in  1800  or  1801, 
and  died  in  the  latter  year,  of  yellow  fever,  in  Tobago. 
In   a   letter   to   this   friend,  from    Plas-yn-llan,  written 
June   17,   1 79 1,*  Wordsworth  expends  many  words  in 
boyish  excuses  for  not  writing  sooner.     He  then  says : 

"  You  will  see  by  the  date  of  this  letter  that  I  am  in 
Wales,  and,  whether  you  remember  the  place  of  Jones's 
residence  or  no,  will  immediately  conclude  that  I  am 
with  him.  I  quitted  London  about  three  weeks  ago, 
where  mv  time  passed  in  a  strange  manner;  sometimes 
whirled  about  by  the  vortex  of  its  strenna  inertia,  and 
sometimes  thrown  by  the  eddv  into  a  corner  of  the 
stream,  where  I  lay  in  almost  motionless  indolence. 
Think  not,  however,  that  I  had  not  many  very  pleasant 
hours ;  a  man  must  be  unfortunate  indeed  who  resides 
four  months  in  Town  without  some  of  his  time  being 
disposed  of  in  such  a  manner  as  he  would  forget  with 
reluctance." 

*   "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,"  I.  24. 


n6  LONDON— ADRIFT  [chap.v 

He  refers  to  Mathews's  opportunity  as  a  school- 
teacher to  cultivate  his  mind,  and  lightly  remarks: 
"  All  the  conclusion  that  this  reflection  has  ever  been 
able  to  lead  me  to  is  how  desirable  an  attainment  would 
learning  be,  if  the  time  exacted  for  it  were  not  so  great. 
Miserable  weakness  !"  And  finally,  out  of  a  wilderness 
of  words,  emerges  the  remark:  "  Among  other  things 
I  wished  to  have  given  you  some  account  of  the  very 
agreeable  manner  in  which  my  time  has  been  spent 
since  I  reached  Wales,  and  of  a  tour  which  Jones  and  I 
intend  making  through  its  northern  counties;  on  foot, 
as  you  will  naturally  suppose." 

After  the  awkward  gambols  of  William's  epistolary 
pen,  it  is  delightful  to  read  one  of  his  sister's  letters,  so 
easy  are  they  and  cordial,  so  open-hearted  and  affec- 
tionate, so  full  of  keen  remarks.  She  writes  to  Jane 
Pollard  from  Forncett,  June  26,  1791  :* 

"  I  often  hear  from  my  brother  William,  who  is  now 
in  Wales,  where  I  think  he  seems  so  happy  that  it  is 
probable  he  will  remain  there  all  the  summer,  or  a 
great  part  of  it.  Who  would  not  be  happy  enjoying 
the  company  of  three  young  ladies  in  the  Vale  of  Clewyd, 
and  without  a  rival  ?  His  friend  Jones  is  a  charming 
young  man,  and  has  five  sisters,  three  of  whom  are  at 
home  at  present.  Then  there  are  mountains,  rivers, 
woods,  and  rocks,  whose  charms  without  any  other 
inducement  would  be  sufficient  to  tempt  William  to 
continue  amongst  them  as  long  as  possible.  So  that 
most  likely  he  will  have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you  when 
he  visits  Halifax,  which  I  hope  he  will  do  in  his  road  to 
the  North.  He  thinks  with  great  pleasure  of  paying 
that  place  a  visit  where  I  have  so  many  friends.  I  con- 
fess you  are  right  in  supposing  me  partial  to  William. 
I  hope  when  you  see  him  you  will  think  my  regard  not 
misplaced.  Probably,  when  I  next  see  Kit,  I  shall  love 
him  as  well ;  the  difference  between  our  ages  at  the  time 
I  was  with  him  was  much  more  perceptible  than  it  will 
be  at  our  next  meeting.  His  disposition  is  of  the  same 
cast  as  William's,  and  his  inclinations  have  taken  the 
same  turn,  but  he  is  much  more  likely  to  make  his  for- 
tune. He  is  not  so  warm  as  William,  but  has  a  most 
affectionate  heart.     His  abilities,  though  not  so  great 

*  From  the  original,  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Marshall. 


i79i]  UNSETTLED  LIFE  117 

perhaps  as  his  brother's,  may  be  of  more  use  to  him,  as 
he  has  not  fixed  his  mind  upon  any  particular  species 
of  reading  or  conceived  an  aversion  to  any.  He  is  not 
fond  of  mathematics,  but  has  resolution  sufficient  to 
study  them,  because  it  will  be  impossible  for  him  to 
obtain  a  fellowship  without  them." 

William's  second  letter  to  Mathews  from  Plas-yn-llan, 
August  13,*  of  the  same  summer,  is  in  the  same  frivolous 
and  mock-bombastic  vein  as  the  first. 

"  I  regret  much,"  he  says,  "  not  having  been  made 
acquainted  with  your  wish  to  have  employed  your 
vacation  in  a  pedestrian  tour,  both  on  your  own  account 
— as  it  would  have  contributed  greatly  to  exhilarate 
your  spirits — and  on  mine,  as  we  should  have  gained 
much  from  the  addition  of  your  society.  Had  I  not 
disgraced  myself  by  deferring  to  write  to  you  so  long, 
this  might  easily  have  been  accomplished.  Such  an 
excursion  would  have  served  like  an  Aurora  Borealis  to 
gild  your  long  Lapland  night  of  melancholy.  I  know 
not  that  you  are  curious  to  have  any  account  of  our 
tour.  If  you  are,  I  must  beg  you  to  excuse  me  from 
entering  into  so  wide  a  field,  contenting  yourself  with 
being  informed  that  we  visited  the  greater  part  of  North 
Wales,  without  having  any  reason  to  complain  of  dis- 
appointed expectations.  .  .  .  You  desire  me  to  com- 
municate to  you  copiously  my  observations  on  modern 
literature,  and  transmit  to  you  a  cup  replete  with  the 
waters  of  that  fountain.  You  might  as  well  have 
solicited  me  to  send  you  an  account  of  the  tribes  in- 
habiting the  central  regions  of  the  African  Continent. 
God  knows  my  incursions  into  the  fields  of  modern 
literature — excepting  in  our  own  language  three  volumes 
of  Tristram  Shandy,  and  two  or  three  papers  of  the 
Spectator,  half  subdued  —  are  absolutely  nothing. 
Were  I  furnished  with  a  dictionary  and  a  grammar, 
and  other  requisites,  I  might  perhaps  make  an  attempt 
upon  Italy,  an  attack  valiant ;  but  probably  my  expedi- 
tion, like  a  redoubted  one  of  Caligula's  of  old,  though 
of  another  kind,  might  terminate  in  gathering  shells 
out  of  Petrarch,  or  seaweed  from  Marino.  The  truth 
of  the  matter  is  that  when  in  Town  I  did  little,  and  since 
I  came  here  I  have  done  nothing.     A  miserable  account  ! 

*  "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,"  I.  30,  and  "Memoirs,"  I.  71, 
where  the  date  is  August  3. 


nS  LONDON— ADRIFT  [chap.v 

However,  I  have  not  in  addition  to  all  this  to  complain 
of  bad  spirits.  That  would  be  the  devil  indeed.  I 
rather  think  that  this  gaiety  increases  with  my  ignorance, 
as  a  spendthrift  grows  more  extravagant  the  nearer  he 
approximates  to  a  final  dissipation  of  his  property.  I 
was  obliged  to  leave  all  my  books  but  one  or  two  behind 
me.  I  regret  much  not  having  brought  my  Spanish 
grammar  along  with  me.  By  peeping  into  it  occa- 
sionally I  might  perhaps  have  contrived  to  keep  the 
little  Spanish  or  some  part  of  it,  that  I  was  master  of. 
I  am  prodigiously  incensed  at  those  rascal  creditors  of 
yours.  What  do  they  not  deserve  ?  Pains,  stripes, 
imprisonments,  etc.,  etc.  .  .  .  Adieu,  hoping  to  hear 
from  you  soon,  and  that  your  letter  will  bring  gladder 
tidings  of  yourself.  I  remain  most  affectionately  yours. 
Chear  up  is  the  word." 

Mathews  was  discontented  with  his  work,  and  made 
some  wild  proposal  to  Wordsworth,  to  which  the  latter 
composed  a  very  sensible  reply,  dated  Cambridge,  Sep- 
tember 23  :* 

"  Your  letter  would  arrive  in  Wales  not  long  after  I 
quitted  it,  on  a  summons  from  Mr.  Robinson,  a  gentle- 
man you  most  likely  have  heard  me  speak  of,  respecting 
my  going  into  orders,  and  taking  a  curacy  at  Harwich, 
where  his  interest  chiefly  lies,  which  curacy  he  con- 
sidered as  introductory  to  the  living.  I  thought  it  was 
best  to  pay  my  respects  to  him  in  person,  to  inform  him 
that  I  was  not  of  age.  ...  I  take  it  for  granted  that 
you  are  not  likely  to  continue  long  in  your  present  em- 
ployment, but  when  you  leave  it  how  you  can  put  into 
execution  the  plan  you  speak  of  I  cannot  perceive.  It 
is  impossible  you  can  ever  have  your  father's  consent 
to  a  scheme  which  to  a  parent  at  least,  if  not  to  every- 
one else,  must  appear  wild  even  to  insanity.  It  is  an 
observation  to  whose  truth  I  have  long  since  consented, 
that  small  certainties  are  the  bane  of  great  talents. 

"  Convinced  as  I  am  of  this,  I  cannot  look  with  much 
satisfaction  on  your  present  situation,  yet  still  I  think 
you  ought  to  be  dissuaded  from  attempting  to  put  in 
practice  the  plan  you  speak  of.  I  do  not  think  you 
could  ever  be  happy  while  you  were  conscious  that  you 
were  a  cause  of  such  sorrow  to  your  parents,  as  they 
must   undoubtedly  be   oppressed  with;   when   all   that 

*   "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,"  I.  33. 


i79i]  AVOIDING  THE  NOOSE  119 

the}'  will  know  of  you  is  that  you  are  wandering  about 
the  world,  without  perhaps  a  house  to  your  head.  I 
cannot  deny  that  were  I  so  situated,  as  to  be  without 
relations,  to  whom  I  were  accountable  for  my  actions, 
I  should  perhaps  prefer  your  idea  to  your  present 
situation,  or  to  vegetating  on  a  paltry  curacy.  \et  still 
there  is  another  objection  which  would  have  influence 
upon  me,  which  is  this :  I  should  not  be  able  to  reconcile 
to  my  ideas  of  right,  the  thought  of  wandering  about  a 
country,  without  a  certainty  of  being  able  to  maintain 
myself  [manuscript  torn]  being  indebted  for  my  exist- 
ence to  those  charities  of  which  the  acceptance  might 
rob  people  not  half  so  able  to  support  themselves  as 
myself.  It  is  evident  there  are  a  thousand  ways  in 
which  a  person  of  your  education  might  get  his  bread, 
as  a  recompense  for  his  labour,  and  while  that  continues 
to  be  the  case,  for  my  own  part  I  confess  I  should  be 
unwilling  to  accept  it  on  any  other  conditions.  I  see 
many  charms  in  the  idea  of  travelling,  much  to  be  en- 
joyed and  much  to  be  learnt,  so  many  that  were  we  in 
possession  of  perhaps  even  less  than  a  hundred  a  year 
apiece,  which  would  amply  obviate  the  objection  I  have 
just  made,  and  without  any  relations  to  whom  we  were 
accountable,  I  would  set  out  with  you  this  moment  with 
all  my  heart,  not  entertaining  a  doubt  but  that  by  some 
means  or  other  we  should  be  soon  able  to  secure  our- 
selves that  independence  you  so  ardently  pant  after, 
and,  what  is  more,  with  minds  furnished  with  such  a  store 
of  ideas  as  would  enable  us  to  enjoy  it.  But  this  is  not 
the  case;  therefore,  for  my  own  part,  I  resign  the  idea. 
I  would  wish  you  to  do  the  same. 

'  What,  then,  is  to  be  done  ?  Hope  and  industry  are 
to  be  your  watchwords,  and  I  warrant  you  their  influ- 
ence will  secure  you  the  victory.  In  order  to  defend 
yourself  from  the  necessity  of  being  immured  for  the 
future,  in  such  a  cell  as  your  present,  determine  to  spare 
no  pains  to  cultivate  the  powers  of  your  mind,  and  you 
may  be  certain  of  being  able  to  support  yourself  in 
London.  You  know  there  are  certain  little  courts  in 
different  parts  of  London,  which  are  called  bags.  If 
you  stumble  into  one  of  them,  there  is  no  advancing;  if 
you  wish  to  proceed  on  your  walk,  you  must  return  the 
way  you  went  in.  These  bags  of  Life  are  what  every 
man  of  spirit  dreads,  and  ought  to  dread.  Be  industrious 
and  you  never  need  get  your  head  into  them ;  let  hope 
be  your  walking  staff,  and  your  fortune  is  made.     Adieu, 


i  20  LONDON— ADRIFT  [chap,  v 

God  bless  you.  I  shall  be  impatient  to  hear  from  you, 
Direct  to  me  here.  I  shall  stay  here  till  the  University 
fills.  .  .  ." 

On  October  9  Dorothy  Wordsworth  writes  to  Jane 
Pollard  from  Forncett:* 

"  William  is  at  Cambridge.  .  .  .  Mr.  Wilberforce  is  at 
Forncett.  I  know  not  when  my  brother  William  will 
go  into  the  North;  probably  not  so  soon  as  he  intends, 
as  he  is  going  to  begin  a  new  course  of  study,  which  he 
may  perhaps  not  be  able  to  go  on  with  so  well  in  that 
part  of  the  world,  as  I  conjecture  he  may  find  it  difficult 
to  meet  with  books.  He  is  going,  by  the  advice  of  my 
uncle  William,  to  study  the  Oriental  languages." 

No  doubt  his  uncle  wished  to  fix  him  in  some  settled 
pursuit,  preferably  the  study  of  divinity,  to  which  "  the 
Oriental  languages,"  presumably  represented  by  He- 
brew, would  be  a  beginning.  His  friend  Mathews,  like 
himself,  was  either  attracted  or  urged  by  circumstances 
to  enter  the  ministry.  Like  Milton,  the  young  poet 
shrank  from  giving  up  his  independence,  though  he 
could  not  have  said  with  Milton:  "  No  delay,  no  rest, 
no  care  or  thought  almost  of  anything,  holds  me  aside 
until  I  reach  the  end  I  am  making  for,  and  round  off,  as 
it  were,  some  great  period  of  my  studies."  Delay  was 
what  he  sought.  He  was  conscious  of  possessing 
peculiar  powers,  as  we  know  from  "  The  Prelude," 
although  his  letters  to  Mathews  do  not  give  that  im- 
pression. They  are  as  modest  as  could  be.  He  blames 
himself  for  his  hesitation,  confesses  he  is  no  scholar, 
does  not  attempt  to  excuse  himself  by  reason  of  any 
special  ambition,  but  raises  the  objection  that  he  is  un- 
willing to  be  tied  down  to  any  pursuit.  As  he  had  no 
home,  and  could  not  be  for  ever  visiting  his  friends,  he 
seems  to  have  spent  about  half  the  autumn  of  1791  at 
Cambridge,  reading  Italian  and  Spanish,  and  not  follow- 
ing a  definite  plan  of  study.  The  likeliest  opening  for 
a  young  man  of  literary  tastes,  but  without  fortune,  was 
to  take  holy  orders.     To  stay  about  the  university  after 

*  From  the  original,  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Marshall.  This  letter  was 
franked  by  the  famous  Mr.  Wilberforce. 


i79i]  CRAVING  FOR  FREEDOM  121 

graduation  with  any  other  purpose  was  rather  unusual. 
There  was  pressure  from  his  family;  on  the  other  hand, 
there  was  the  inward  urging  after  freedom,  experience, 
knowledge  of  the  beauties  and  wonders  of  the  world. 
Like  many  another  young  graduate,  he  thought  of 
foreign  travel  as  a  means  of  combining  study  with  the 
gratification  of  a  craving  for  these  things.  From  the 
general  tone  of  his  correspondence  with  Mathews,  in 
which  he  frequently  mentions  his  desire  to  preserve 
intellectual  liberty,  it  is  evident  that  he  hesitated  on 
moral  grounds  to  commit  himself  to  entering  the  clerical 
profession.  He,  no  less  than  his  friend,  panted  ardently 
after  independence.  He  could  not  have  failed,  more- 
over, to  see  that  the  principles  of  established  religion 
were  seriously  brought  into  question  by  some  of  the  most 
acute  minds  in  his  own  country  and  elsewhere,  and  that 
the  trend  of  public  events  was  making  against  anything 
like  placid  acceptance  of  even  the  most  venerable  tradi- 
tions. His  letters  are  those  of  an  awakened  and  restive 
spirit.  It  is  not  possible  to  assert,  from  the  evidence 
which  remains,  that  he  was  at  this  time  a  believer  in 
Christianity,  nor  is  it  possible  to  be  certain  that  he  was 
not. 


r 


/ 


CHAPTER  VI 

INFLUENCE  OF  ROUSSEAU 

We  hear  from  Wordsworth  next  at  Brighton,  November 
23,  1 79 1,  waiting  for  favourable  winds  to  take  him  to 
France.     He  writes  thence  to  Mathews  :* 

"  I  have  been  prevented  from  replying  to  your  letter 
by  an  uncertainty  respecting  the  manner  in  which  I 
should  dispose  of  myself  for  the  winter,  and  which  I 
have  expected  to  be  determinated  every  da}7  this  month 
past.  I  am  now  on  my  way  to  Orleans,  where  I  pur- 
pose to  pass  the  winter,  and  am  detained  here  by  adverse 
winds.  I  was  very  happy  to  hear  that  you  had  given 
up  3rour  travelling  scheme,  that  your  father  had  con- 
sented to  your  changing  your  situation,  and  that  in 
consequence  your  mind  was  much  easier.  I  approve 
much  of  your  resolution  to  stay  where  you  are  till  you 
meet  with  a  more  eligible  engagement,  provided  your 
health  does  not  materially  suffer  by  it.  It  argues  a 
manly  spirit  which  you  will  undoubtedly  be  careful  to 
preserve.  I  am  happy  to  find  that  my  letter  afforded 
you  some  consolation.  There  are  few  reflections  more 
pleasing  than  the  consciousness  that  one  has  contributed 
in  the  smallest  degree  to  diminish  the  anxiety  of  one's 
friends.   .   .  . 

"  I  expect  I  assure  you  considerable  pleasure  from 
my  sojourn  on  the  other  side  of  the  water,  and  some 
little  improvement,  which  God  knows  I  stand  in  suffi- 
cient need  of. 

"  I  am  doomed  to  be  an  idler  through  my  whole  life. 
I  have  read  nothing  this  age,  nor  indeed  did  I  ever. 
Yet  with  all  this  I  am  tolerably  happy.  Do  you  think 
this  ought  to  be  a  matter  of  congratulation  to  me,  or 
no  ?  For  my  own  part  I  think  certainly  not.  My 
uncle,  the  clergyman,  proposed  to  me  a  short  time  ago 

*   "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,"  I.  37. 
122 


i79i]  CHANGING  PLANS  123 

to  begin  a  course  of  Oriental  literature,  thinking  that 
that  was  the  best  field  for  a  person  to  distinguish  himself 
in,  as  a  man  of  letters.  To  oblige  him  I  consented  to 
pursue  the  plan  upon  my  return  from  the  Continent. 
But  what  must  I  do  amongst  that  immense  wilderness, 
I  who  have  no  resolution,  and  who  have  not  prepared 
myself  for  the  enterprise  by  any  sort  of  discipline  amongst 
the  Western  languages  ?  who  know  little  of  Latin,  and 
scarce  anything  of  Greek.  A  pretty  confession  for  a 
young  gentleman  whose  whole  life  ought  to  have  been 
devoted  to  study.  And  thus  the  world  wags.  But 
away  with  this  outrageous  egotism.  Tell  me  what  you 
are  doing,  and  what  you  read.  What  authors  are  your 
favourites,  and  what  number  of  that  venerable  body 
you  wish  in  the  Red  Sea  ?  I  shall  be  happy  to  hear 
from  you  immediately.  My  address,  Mons.  W.  Words- 
worth, Les  Trois  Empereurs,  a  Orleans.  I  am  no  French- 
man, but  I  believe  that  is  the  way  that  a  letter  is  ad- 
dressed in  France.  I  should  have  deferred  this  epistle 
till  I  had  crossed  the  water,  when  I  might  have  had  an 
opportunity  of  giving  you  something  new;  had  I  not 
imagined  you  would  be  surprised  at  not  hearing  from 
me,  and  had  I  not  had  more  time  on  my  hands  at  present 
than  I  am  likely  to  have  for  some  time.  Adieu.  Yours 
most  affectionately  and  sincerely,  W.  Wordsworth." 


/why 


did  Wordsworth  make  choice  of  France  ?  No 
doubt  the  agreeable  impression  produced  by  the  French 
whom  he  had  met  on  his  long  foot-tour  had  something 
to  do  with  it.  They  had  charmed  him  by  their  manners, 
their  alertness,  and  their  speech.  He  knew  the  language 
fairly  well  by  this  time.  And  there  was  no  doubt  a 
more  significant  reason,  in  his  sympathy  with  the 
Revolutionary  spirit,  now  at  its  height.  Love  of  ad- 
venture, a  desire  to  be  near  the  scene  of  great  events,  a 
feeling  that  the  air  of  France  would  be  good  for  him  at 
that  particular  time  when  he  was  hesitating  and  France 
was  rushing  confidently  forward — all  these  elements 
were  doubtless  present  in  his  mind  as  motivesj  The 
study  of  the  Oriental  languages  was  becoming  a  faint  and 
distant  prospecE  We  have  seen  that  he  was  studying 
several  of  the  Romance  languages,  evidently  with  a  view 
to  fitting  himself  for  teaching  them.     It  was  doubtful 


124  INFLUENCE  OF  ROUSSEAU         [chap.vi 

whether  he  would  settle  in  England  on  his  return.  His 
brother  John  was  coming  and  going  between  home  and 
the  Indies,  both  East  and  West.  William's  thoughts 
were  often  turned  in  the  direction  of  Barbados.  As  he 
has  told  us,  he  felt  a  leaning  towards  a  military  career, 
or  at  least  towards  being  a  General  !  In  fact,  he  had 
big  hopes,  and  thought  the  world  was  all  before  him 
where  to  choose.  His  sister,  whose  nature  was  equally 
ardent,  but  who  seems  to  have  been  up  to  this  time 
richer  in  real  heart  experience,  was  making  quiet  obser- 
vations at  Forncett.  She  chafed  against  restraint,  but 
her  only  outlet  was  to  share,  in  sympathy,  the  actions 
of  her  roving  brothers,  John  and  William,  and  the 
scholastic  triumphs  of  Christopher.  She  was  as  anxious 
as  a  mother  that  William  and  Christopher  and  John 
should  have  every  advantage.  One  of  her  great  con- 
cerns was  to  see  them  educated  and  started  in  life  before 
the  modest  fortune  of  the  family  was  quite  exhausted. 
And  so  it  was  with  great  relief  that  she  wrote  to  her 
friend  on  December  7,  1791,  the  letter  already  quoted, 
which  concludes : 

"  Poor  Richard  is  quite  harassed  with  our  vexatious 
business  with  that  tyrannical  Lord  Lonsdale ;  he  has 
all  the  plague  of  it.  William  is,  I  hope,  by  this  time 
arrived  in  Orleans,  where  he  means  to  pass  the  winter 
for  the  purpose  of  learning  the  French  language,  which 
will  qualify  him  for  the  office  of  travelling  companion 
to  some  young  gentleman,  if  he  can  get  recommended; 
it  will  at  any  rate  be  very  useful  to  him,  and  as  he  can 
live  at  as  little  expense  in  France  as  in  England,  or 
nearly  so,  the  scheme  is  not  an  ineligible  one.  He  is  at  the 
same  time  engaged  in  the  study  of  the  Spanish  language, 
and  if  he  settles  in  England  on  his  return  (I  mean  if 
he  has  not  the  opportunity  of  becoming  a  travelling 
tutor)  he  will  begin  the  study  of  the  Oriental  languages." 

Wordsworth's  life  was  by  no  means  uneventful.  If 
contact  with  supremely  important  public  affairs  and 
intimacy  with  great  spirits  make  a  life  eventful,  we 
may  say,  indeed,  that  no  other  English  poet,  since  the 
years  when  Milton  sat  at  the  council  table  with  Crom- 
well,  has   undergone   experiences   so   heart-stirring   as 


i7gi]  FORTUNATE  CONTACTS  125 

those  which  came  in  a  few  years  to  the  quiet  young  poet 
from  the  North  Country.  What  would  not  any  student 
of  history  give  to  have  walked  across  France  in  the 
inspiring  summer  of  1 790  ?  In  the  calendar  of  great 
days,  what  lover  of  literature  would  not  mark  as  memor- 
able above  all  others  one  on  which  he  had  met  Coleridge 
and  won  his  heart  for  ever  ?  How  many  occurrences 
in  any  man's  life  could  have  been  reckoned  so  notable 
as  making  friends  with  Charles  Lamb  and  Walter  Scott  ? 
And  we  have  now  come  to  an  epoch  in  Wordsworth's 
personal  history  which  had  all  the  charm  of  adventure 
and  romance,  together  with  a  spice  of  danger,  and  in 
which  he  touched,  as  with  his  bare  hand,  the  vast  coils 
that  were  generating  heat  and  light  for  a  world  that  was 
to  move  faster  than  ever  before  and  through  clearer 
spaces.  His  poetry  yields  sustenance  to  old  and  young, 
to  the  ignorant  and  the  well  informed,  but  can  be  really 
appreciated  only  by  those  who  have  entered  into  its 
spirit  in  two  ways — by  natural  sympathy  with  his  mode 
of  thought,  and  by  knowledge  of  his  life.  One  of  the 
most  decisive  periods  of  that  life  was  the  thirteen  or 
fourteen  months  of  his  second  visit  to  France.  From 
the  seclusion  of  Hawkshead,  the  sheltered  luxury  of 
Cambridge,  the  slow  pace  and  quiet  tone  of  English  and 
Welsh  parsonages  and  country-houses,  he  stepped  in  a 
single  day  into  the  brilliancy,  the  hardness,  the  peril, 
and  excitement,  of  Revolutionary  France. 

The  contrast  between  the  two  countries  would  have 
been  stimulating  at  any  time ;  in  1 791  it  was  almost  over- 
powering. His  sojourn  in  France  enabled  him  to  gather 
into  the  solidity  of  a  system  those  faint  impulses  of  love 
for  humanity  which,  as  we  have  seen,  were  stirring  in 
him  during  his  stay  in  London.  It  confirmed  his  doubts 
of  the  validity  of  the  religion  in  which  he  had  been 
brought  up.  It  strengthened  his  implicit  republicanism 
into  an  explicit  and  outspoken  political  creed,  and  shook 
his  faith  in  the  paramount  excellence  of  his  own  country. 
It  widened  immensely  the  scope  of  his  "  civism,"  to  use 
a  word  more  current  then  than  now,  for  the  step  from 
patriotism  to  a  love  which  embraces  one's  own  country 


M 


126  INFLUENCE  OF  ROUSSEAU         [chap.vi 

and  another  is  enormous.  Had  those  months  of  his 
life  been  spent  at  Cambridge  or  in  London  or  in  the  Lake 
country,  he  would  probably  not  have  written  "  The 
Prelude,"  which  without  the  ninth,  tenth,  and  eleventh 
books  would  be  like  a  play  in  which  the  hero  should 
never  face  his  "  problem  ";  there  would  have  been  no 
"  Excursion,"  no  fragment  of  a  "  Recluse."  In  like 
manner,  one  may  say,  despite  the  sardonic  protest  of 
Mark  Pattison,  that  Milton  never  would  have  written 
"  Paradise  Lost  "  and  "  Samson  Agonistes  "  had  he  not 
laid  aside  his  "  singing  robes  "  and  prompted  his  age  to 
quit  their  clogs 

By  the  known  rules  of  ancient  liberty. 

The  strain  to  which  Milton  subjected  himself  for  his 
country's  sake  lasted  more  than  twenty  years ;  in  Words- 
worth's case  the  crisis  was  neither  so  sharp  nor  so  pro- 
longed, but  it  was  more  complicated  and  perhaps  more 
harassing.   \\ 

Unfortunately,  his  first  biographer,  to  whom  we  are 
so  deeply  indebted  for  facts  that  would  otherwise  have 
been  for  ever  lost,  either  had  very  little  material  for  the 
years  1790  to  1795,  or  thought  fit  to  suppress  much  that 
a  discreet  and  reverent  interest  would  now  desire  to  be 
acquainted  with.  And  the  poet  himself  deemed  that 
he  had  done  enough  to  satisfy  posterity  in  writing  "  The 
Prelude."  He  tells  us  little  about  his  external  relations 
during  his  French  sojourn,  and  knowledge  of  them  would 
be  extremely  valuable  to  all  students,  not  only  of  his  life 
and  poetry,  but  of  the  history  of  human  progress.  Even 
had  he  been  no  poet,  but  only  the  clear  yet  passionate 
observer  that  he  was,  his  experiences  would  rank  with 
the  most  precious  documents  of  the  Revolution.  It 
has  often  been  suggested  that  the  facts  were  suppressed 
by  his  family,  among  whom  were  numbered  several 
great  Churchmen  and  a  Master  of  Trinity.  Wordsworth 
himself  in  his  old  age  may  have  been  unwilling  to  let 
the  world  know,  except  in  the  very  general  terms  which 
he  employs  in  his  autobiographical  poem,  how  extreme 
were  his  opinions,  and  how  irregular  /^perhaps,  was  his 


i79i]  SUPPRESSED  CHAPTERS  127 

conduct,  as  compared  with  the  standards  to  which  he 
subsequently  conformed.  But  if  mere  inference  is  at 
all  permissible  in  such  a  matter,  no  one  can  be  justly 
censured  for  thinking  that  the  agony  and  gloom  of  his 
spirit  for  several  years  after  his  return  from  France 
indicates  that  during  his  stay  there  he  identified  him- 
self more  completely  with  the  Revolutionary  cause  and 
with  French  life  than  either  he  or  his  nephew  the  Bishop 
were  willing  to  admit  in  plain  terms. 

Before  endeavouring  to  penetrate  this  mystery,  and 
even  before  piecing  together  the  most  significant  of  his 
own  poetical  statements  concerning  the  effect  of  his 
experiences  in  France,  we  must  consider  an  influence  to 
which  he  was  probably  exposed  before  he  left  England, 
and  which  unquestionably  continued  and  deepened  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Channel.  This  was  the  influence 
of  Rousseau. 

Wordsworth  was  never  a  browsing  reader.  In  the 
course  of  his  long  life,  so  uncommonly  exempt  from 
petty  cares  and  interruptions,  he  read  much,  to  be  sure, 
but  seldom  with  avidity.  He  went  to  books  as  to  a 
serious  task.  His  sister's  Grasmere  Journal,  if  we  had 
not  the  evidence  of  his  own  diction,  would  show  that  he 
studied  Chaucer  and  the  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean 
poets  with  extreme  care.  He  found  pleasure  especially 
in  books  of  travel  and  description.  He  was  familiar 
with  much  classical  and  Italian  literature.  Books  to 
him  were  "  a  substantial  world,"  very  real,  as  real 
almost  as  living  persons,  and  therefore  not  to  be  lightly 
treated.  Amid  their  pressure,  as  amid  the  unremitting 
urgency  of  friends,  he  still  preserved  his  independence, 
and,  on  the  whole,  few  other  great  poets  are  so  little 
indebted  to  books.  As  we  have  seen,  he  reproached 
himself  for  his  indifference  during  his  months  of  leisure 
after  leaving  college. 

One  author,  however,  he  almost  certainly  read  before 
the  close  of  1791,  and,  curiously  enough,  this  was  a 
writer  who  himself  had  been  indifferent  to  books. 
Rousseau  it  is,  far  more  than  any  other  man  of  letters, 
either  oT  antiquity  or  of  modern   times,  whose  works 


128  INFLUENCE  OF  ROUSSEAU         [chap.vi 

have  left  their  trace  in  Wordsworth's  poetry.  This 
poor,  half-educated  dreamer,  just  because  he  was  poor, 
half  educated,  and  a  dreamer,  found  his  way  to  the 
centre  of  his  age,  the  centre  of  its  intellectual  and 
emotional  life.  And  here  all  original  and  simple  souls 
met  him.  They  were  drawn  thither  by  the  same  force 
that  drew  him,  by  a  desire  to  return  to  nature.  Ex- 
aggeration apart,  and  thinking  not  so  much  of  his 
sympathetic  working  out  of  his  views,  which  was  gener- 
ally too  abstract  and  speciously  consistent,  as  of  their 
origin,  purpose,  and  spirit,  one  must  acknowledge  their 
truth.  They  are  as  obviously  true  now  as  they  were 
startlingly  true  when  first  uttered.  They  could  not  have 
seemed  novel  to  Wordsworth,  who  was  prepared  for  them 
by  having  lived  with  lowly  people,  of  stalwart  intelli- 
gence and  worthy  morals,  at  Hawkshead.  Originality 
often  consists  in  having  remained  unconscious  of  perverse 
departures  from  simple  and  natural  ways  of  thought.  A 
person  who  has  been  brought  up  to  know  and  speak  plain 
truth  appears  original  in  perverse  and  artificial  society. 
We  can  imagine  Wordsworth  becoming,  without  the 
aid  of  Rousseau,  very  nearly  what  he  did  become. 
Nevertheless,  the  points  of  agreement  are  too  numerous 
to  be  the  result  of  mere  coincidence.  Had  Rousseau 
been  less  occupied  with  general  ideas,  had  he  been 
dominated  by  a  poet's  interest  in  particulars,  it  is  not 
too  fanciful  to  suppose  that  he  would  have  chosen  sub- 
jects like  those  which  Wordsworth  took  from  familiar  life ; 
,  and  an  examination  of  Rousseau's  language  shows  a 
^  careful  preference  for  the  diction  of  common  speech. 
Wordsworth's  earliest  poems,  composed  before  he  had 
read  Rousseau,  reveal  little  of  this  tendency.  It  is 
quite  likely  that  he  owes  more  in  this  respect  to  Rousseau 
than  has  been  yet  acknowledged.  And  in  that  case  the 
debt  should  be  shared  by  Coleridge.  Whether  it  was 
he  or  Coleridge  who  took  the  initiative  in  the  metrical 
and  rhetorical  reform  which  found  its  first  marked  ex- 
pression in  "  Lyrical  Ballads  "  has  often  been  discussed. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Coleridge  would  see  more 
quickly  than  Wordsworth  the  theoretical  consequences 


1791]  POETIC  REVERIE  129 

and  implications  of  what  they  had  done,  and  would  be 
the  first  to  suggest  formulating  a  doctrine.  But  it  may 
be  that  certain  philosophical  principles,  derived  from 
Rousseau,  had  already  found  a  lodgment  in  Words- 
worth's mind-  For,  after  all,  Coleridge's  native  bent 
was  towards  the  uncommon,  the  abstruse,  the  mystical, 
the  splendid.  He  adapted  himself,  with  cordial  sym- 
pathy, to  the  new  idea,  of  which  he  perceived  the  im- 
portance. But  affection,  love  of  fellowship,  and  zeal 
to  confer  kindness,  may  have  carried  him  much  farther 
than  he  would  ever  have  dreamed  of  going  alone  in  the 
direction  indicated  by  "  Lyrical  Ballads  "  and  the 
critical  expositions  which  form  so  large  and  noble  a  part 
of  "  Biographia  Literaria."  1 

What,  in  fine,  are  the  distinctive  elements  in  Rous-  Af~  JlM 
seau  ?  In  the  first  place,  we  recognize  in  him  the 
prevalence  of  reverie  as  a  mode  of  thought.  Reverie 
is  an  inactive,  unsystematic  kind  of  meditation,  dis- 
tinguished from  logical  processes  of  discourse  by  the 
absence  of  consciously  perceived  steps.  It  is  in  so  far 
unsatisfactory,  that  the  results  cannot  be  determined 
beforehand  and  the  movement  cannot  be  retraced 
backward,  as  one  would  "  prove  "  a  result  in  arithmetic. 
It  has,  however,  an  advantage  over  the  ordinary  kind 
of  philosophic  speculation — ordinary  at  least  in  the 
occidental  world — in  that  it  involves  a  more  complete  / 
merging  of  the  thinker  in  his  thought,  engaging  his  senti- 
ment and  giving  him  a  spiritual  rather  than  a  corporeal 
approach  to  objects  of  sensation.  In  reverie  a  person 
seems  to  touch,  taste,  smell,  hear,  and  see,  by  a  reflex 
disturbance  of  the  organs,  or  physical  reminiscence. 
Reverie  is  thus  almost  sensuous.  Furthermore,  it  is 
not  discursive,  it  does  not  characteristically  tend  to 
movement,  it  is  static.  It  discloses  to  the  mind  what 
the  mind  already  contains,  but  discovers  no  new  subjects 
of  thought.  It  arouses,  arranges,  unifies,  the  elements 
of  one's  soul,  and  the  dreamer  may  emerge  from  his 
dream  with  a  truer  knowledge  of  himself  and  a  more 
definite  purpose.  External  events  and  objects  are  not 
primary  essentials  of  this  state,  though  they  may  induce 
1.  9 


130  INFLUENCE  OF  ROUSSEAU         [chap,  vi 

or  stimulate  it.  This  is  truly  the  poetic  process,  and 
Rousseau,  in  all  his  most  original,  vital,  and  charac- 
teristic passages,  is  a  poet.  We  are  reminded  when  we 
read  them  of  Wordsworth's  remark,  "  Poetry  is  emotion 
recollected  in  tranquillity." 
V  A  second  element  in  Rousseau  is  his  desire  to  simplify : 
to  reduce  the  number  and  complexity  of  experiences 
and  ideals.  The  mode  of  reverie  always  tends  to  con- 
centrate and  unite  a  multitude  of  concepts  which  have 
come  into  the  dreamer's  mind  from  many  and  diverse 
sources.  To  one  who  contemplates  in  this  way,  all 
dispersal  of  energy  is  painful  and  repugnant.  So  it 
was  with  Rousseau.  The  tragedy  of  his  life,  and  the 
cause  of  his  madness,  was  an  abnormal  shrinking  from 
being  torn  asunder,  as  all  men  must  be  continually 
torn  asunder,  by  the  demands  of  other  people.  Con- 
trast with  this  Voltaire's  joy  of  combat,  his  enthusiastic 
readiness  to  give  his  time  and  talents  to  others,  his 
radiant  sociability.  The  danger  that  besets  a  poetic 
temperament,  the  danger  of  excessive  introversion,  of 
shrinking  from  the  expense  of  spirit  in  a  waste  of  ex- 
ternal reality,  was  absent  in  Voltaire's  case,  but  lurked 
in  the  very  heart  of  Rousseau.  Nevertheless,  when 
applied  to  things  outside  himself,  to  the  social  problem, 
the  domestic  life,  the  politics,  the  religion  of  his  age, 
Rousseau's  desire  to  simplify  gave  him  the  master-touch. 
He  laid  his  finger  on  the  racked  nerves  and  prescribed 
quiet,  concentration,  and  simplicity.  But  this  meant 
revolution.  For  the  habits  and  laws  of  society  had  been 
made  on  a  different  principle. 

'  The  impulse  to  shake  off  intricacies  is  the  mark  of 
revolutionary  generations,"  says  John  Morley,  "  and  it 
was  the  starting-point  of  all  Rousseau's  mental  habits, 
and  of  the  work  in  which  they  expressed  themselves.  .  .  . 
Simplification  of  religion  by  clearing  away  the  over- 
growth of  errors,  simplification  of  social  relations  by 
equality,  of  literature  and  art  by  constant  return  to 
nature,  of  manners  by  industrious  homeliness — this  is 
the  revolutionary  process  and  ideal,  and  this  is  the 
secret  of  Rousseau  s  hold  over  a  generation  that  was 
lost  amid  the  broken  maze  of  fallen  systems." 


i79i]  EQUALITY  AND  SIMPLICITY  131 

Rousseau's  Discourses,  "  Whether  the  Restoration 
of  the  Arts  and  Sciences  has  tended  to  purify  Manners," 
and  "  On  the  Sources  of  Inequality  among  Men,"  show 
by  their  very  titles  the  sequence  of  his  thought  and 
how  the  idea  of  simplification  leads  to  the  idea  of 
equality. 

Now,  inequality  is  a  sign  and  a  cause  of  unstable 
equilibrium.  Where  inequality  exists  there  is  a  constant 
pressure  to  restore  the  balance.  He,  therefore,  who 
desires  that  life  shall  be  simple,  and  that  men  shall 
attain,  as  nearly  as  possible,  a  level  of  opportunity, 
loves  permanence  and  is  the  true  conservative.  More- 
over, a  man  who  thinks  by  means  of  reverie  is  by  this 
peculiarity  inclined  to  prefer  permanence  to  change. 
The  ruminative  process  is  slow.  Its  objects  are  lovingly 
retained  and  caressed.  Self  as  an  active  agent  seems 
to  the  dreamer  to  be  of  less  consequence  than  self  as  a 
receptive,  passive  organ/  inwardly  transforming  and 
assimilating  what  comes  to  it.  By  this  persistent 
association  of  self  with  the  objects  of  contemplation, 
the  latter  become  infused  with  life  from  the  former. 
They  lose  their  difference.  They  become  humanized. 
Harmony  is  thus  established  between  the  poet  or 
dreamer  and  the  world  which  has  been  so  long  his  world 
He  endows  it  with  his  own  consciousness.  He  sym- 
pathizes with  it,  after  first  projecting  himself  into  it. 
And  by  a  dangerous  turn  the  world,  or,  rather,  so  much 
of  it  as  he  has  thus  appropriated,  may  become  his  accom- 
plice and  his  flatterer.  We  have  here,  perhaps,  the 
clue  to  that  practice  which  Ruskin  termed  "  the 
pathetic  fallacy,"  the  practice  of  reading  into  nature 
feelings  which  are  not  properly  nature's,  but  man's. 
Possibly,  too,  we  have  here  an  explanation  of  the  calm 
egoism  of  some  poets. 

But,  to  continue  our  attempt  to  analyze  Rousseau,  it 
must  be  apparent  that  the  permanent  is  the  natural ; 
the  truly  permanent,  I  mean,  which  in  the  long-run  holds 
out  against  all  artifice.  And  the  natural  qualities  of 
human  beings  are  common  to  nearly  all.  To  the  many, 
and  not  to  the  privileged  or  perverted  few,  must  he  go 


/ 


132  INFLUENCE  OF  ROUSSEAU         [chap,  vf 

who  would  understand  life.  This  conviction,  proceed- 
ing from  his  habit  of  reverie  and  his  love  of  simplicity, 
is  the  third  characteristic  of  Rousseau.  Being  a  child 
of  the  people,  knowing  their  soundness  and  vigour,  he 
felt  no  surprise  in  connection  with  such  a  principle, 
and  set  it  forth  as  self-evident  in  his  books.  But  it 
surprised  Europe.  To  him  it  was  a  matter  of  course 
that  wisdom  should  be  justified  of  all  her  children: 
securus  judical  orbis  lerrarum.  There  was  nothing  new 
in  this  conviction.  It  has,  no  doubt,  been  held  always 
by  nine-tenths  of  the  human  race.  But  it  was  new  in 
a  man  of  letters.  It  was  not  the  opinion  of  cultured 
people.  To  culture  as  a  process  of  distinction,  Words- 
worth, too,  showed  repugnance  at  Cambridge  and  in  his 
London  life.     He,  who  was  to  write 

Of  joy  in  widest  commonalty  spread, 

scarcely  needed  the  formulas  in  which  Rousseau  stated 
the  instinctive  faith  that  wTas  in  them  both.  The  social 
aspect  of  the  French  Revolution,  its  glorious  recognition 
of  equal  rights  and  common  brotherhood,  seemed  to 
him — so  gracious  had  been  the  influences  of  his  boyhood 
— only  natural,  and  he  consequently  sings:* 

If  at  the  first  great  outbreak  I  rejoiced 
Less  than  might  well  befit  my  youth,  the  cause 
In  part  lay  here,  that  unto  me  the  events 
Seemed  nothing  out  of  nature's  certain  course, 
A  gift  that  was  come  rather  late  than  soon. 

A  fourth  quality  of  Rousseau  is  his  intense  individual- 
ism. Men  in  a  state  of  nature,  in  close  contact  with 
the  earth,  with  animals,  and  with  other  men  not  over- 
poweringly  different  from  themselves,  have  to  rely  on 
their  own  resources.  A  brooding,  introspective  person 
in  such  circumstances  is  liable  to  form  a  very  high,  if 
not  an  exaggerated,  estimate  of  his  own  consequence 
as  compared  with  that  of  his  fellow-mortals.  He  is 
more  likely  to  acknowledge  the  dependence  of  man  upon 
nature  than  the  solidarity  of  men  with  one  another. 
The  political  views  of  Rousseau,  as  stated,  for  example, 

*   "  Prelude,"  IX.  244. 


i79i]  HIS  INDIVIDUALISM  133 

in  "  The  Social  Contract,"  are  extremely  individualistic. 
They  are  based  on  the  assumption  that  society  was 
originally  anarchical,  a  collection  of  independent  per- 
sons or  families ;  and  the  individual,  not  having  been 
a  co-ordinate  part  of  a  pre-existing  harmony,  still 
retains,  as  it  were,  the  right  of  secession;  he  has 
merely  entered  into  a  pact  with  other  free  and  indepen- 
dent beings,  and  his  surrender  of  some  of  his  liberty 
may  be  only  for  a  time.  As  has  often  been  pointed  out, 
this  conception  would  hardly  have  been  possible  in  a 
Catholic.  It  was  ultra-Protestant.  It  was  Calvinistic. 
Wherever  the  influence  of  the  Genevan  republic  has 
been  strongest,  a  spirit  of  independence  has  been  most 
active.  Ruthlessly  disintegrating  in  its  effect  upon 
large  political  combinations,  this  influence  has  often 
been  productive  of  manly  fortitude  and  self-reliance  in 
smaller  bodies.  The  histories  of  the  Netherlands,  of 
Scotland,  of  the  North  of  Ireland,  of  England  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  of  the  American  Revolution,  and 
of  the  American  Civil  War,  have  their  beginnings  in 
Geneva.  Considering  Rousseau's  origins,  it  is  eas}T  to 
understand  his  restiveness  under  restraint,  his  horror 
of  patronage,  his  association  of  human  strength,  not 
with  union  among  men,  but  with  the  wild  and  stern 
aspects  of  nature. 

Wordsworth,  with  his  Anglican  training,  never  went 
to  the  individualistic  extreme  in  his  love  of  liberty. 
Even  when  most  rebellious  against  the  spirit  of  his 
bringing-up  and  his  environment,  he  still  felt  that  social 
ties  had  something  of  the  naturalness  and  permanence 
of  the  external  world.  He  thus  acted  the  mediating 
part  of  a  true  Anglican,  and  even,  one  might  say,  of 
a  true  Englishman,  by  trying  to  preserve  historic  con- 
tinuity without  surrendering  the  right  of  private  J 
judgment. 

Rousseau  reasoned  more  abstractly  and  trenchantly. 
But  trenchant  abstract  reasoning,  in  the  complex  field 
of  social  relations,  is  peculiarly  liable  to  error.  The 
natural,  which  is  permanent,  is  also  rational,  and  the 
rude  popular  way  of  arguing  from  analogy  and  precedent 


134  INFLUENCE  OF  ROUSSEAU  [chap,  vi 

is  therefore,  after  all,  a  sort  of  reasoning.  Thus  Words- 
worth was  not  less  rational  than  Rousseau,  though  in  him 
pure  reason  was  steadily  counterbalanced  by  instinct. 
In  Rousseau  there  was  rarely  an  equilibrium  between 
the  two;  he  was  alternately  swayed  by  the  one  or  the 
other;  he  at  times  surrendered  himself  to  reverie  and 
earned  the  name  of  sentimentalist;  and,  again,  he  was 
seduced  by  the  speciousness  of  abstract  reasoning, 
and  has  therefore,  perhaps  not  altogether  unjustly,  been 
called  a  sophist.  Wordsworth,  as  became  a  poet,  did 
not  thus  separate  his  mental  processes.  His  reverie 
was  more  like  reflection,  it  had  more  of  the  rational, 
discursive  quality  than  Rousseau's;  and  his  reasoning 
was  less  abstract,  it  never  lost  touch  with  things  and 
events.  As  Edward  Caird,  using  the  method  and  lan- 
guage of  Hegel,  put  the  case,  Wordsworth  "  trans- 
cends "  Rousseau,  reconciling  his  contradictions  in  a 
higher  plane.* 

He  who  believes  that  tillers  of  the  soil  and  those  in 
walks  of  life  but  little  removed  from  them — that  is, 
the  majority  of  mankind — are  leading  natural  and  there- 
fore rational  lives,  and  that  their  social  laws  are  rela- 
tively permanent,  and  therefore  not  wanting  in  authority, 
is  not  likely  to  be  made  unhappy  by  the  outbreak  of  a 
revolution  which  promises  to  restore  the  artificially  dis- 
turbed balance  of  human  power  and  happiness.  Rous- 
seau's message,  notwithstanding  the  final  gloom  of  his 
life,  was  one  of  gladness.  More  than  any  other  feature 
of  the  Revolution,  Wordsworth,  too,  felt  its  joy. 

*  Essay  on"  Wordsworth  "  in  "  Essays  on  Literature,"  1909. 


CHAPTER  VII 

IN  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE 

When  the  young  English  poet  set  foot  on  French  soil, 
near  the  end  of  November,  1791,  the  prospects  for  a 
successful  issue  of  the  Revolution  were  very  bright. 
The  movement  was  still  apparently  under  the  control  of 
sober  men,  the  disciples  of  Montesquieu,  whose  object 
was  to  model  a  State  after  the  English  pattern,  with 
constitution,  hereditary  sovereignty,  and  legal  safe- 
guards of  personal  freedom.  The  excellent  elements, 
also,  of  Rousseau's  doctrines  were  being  put  into  prac- 
tice. The  net  result  of  the  work  of  the  Constituent 
Assembly  was  such  as  to  win  the  approval  of  all  French 
patriots  and  of  nearly  all  progressive  Englishmen, 
Burke  being  one  of  the  few  notable  exceptions.  What 
generous  and  emancipated  spirit  could  fail  to  applaud 
its  great  achievements  ?  It  had  abolished  feudal  privi- 
leges, many  of  the  nobles  themselves  voluntarily  re- 
nouncing their  immemorial  advantages  in  local  govern- 
ment. It  had  taken  from  the  king  and  reserved  for 
the  representatives  of  the  people  the  power  to  make 
laws,  to  impose  taxes,  and  to  declare  war  and  peace. 
It  had  wiped  out  the  octroi  and  many  other  restrictions 
on  agriculture,  industry,  and  internal  trade.  It  had 
abolished  titles  and  the  law  of  primogeniture,  and  thus 
reduced  the  nobles  to  the  rank  of  ordinary  citizens. 
It  had  thrown  open  all  civil  and  military  careers  to  all 
citizens,  regardless  of  birth  and  religion.  It  had  replaced 
the  ancient  provinces  with  eighty-three  departments 
nearly  equal  in  size.  It  had  begun  a  vast  reform  of  the 
national  finances.  It  had  firmly  established  an  equally 
great  and  necessary  judicial  reform,  by  replacing  the 

135 


136  IN  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE    [chap  vn 

four  hundred  local  systems  of  custom  law  with  a  uniform 
procedure,  and  setting  on  foot  the  work  of  codification. 
It  had  undertaken  with  equal  energy,  though  perhaps 
too  drastically,  to  reform  the  abuses  of  ecclesiastical 
power,  by  granting  freedom  of  worship  to  Jews  and 
Protestants  and  admitting  them  to  civil  office,  by 
destroying  the  corporate  status  of  the  Church,  with 
respect  to  its  right  to  hold  property,  and  by  thus 
nationalizing  its  immense  wealth.  The  clergy  were  in 
this  way  made  public  functionaries,  and  the  State  under- 
took to  support  them  and  the  charities  which  pre- 
viously were  maintained  by  the  Church.  The  Catholic 
religion  in  France  was  to  be  independent  of  the  Pope^J 

Some  of  the  new  laws  affecting  the  delicate  question 
of  religion  were  plainly  in  advance  of  public  opinion. 
They  were  demanded  by  the  logic  of  the  movement, 
but  did  not  take  sufficient  account  of  either  sentiment 
or  facts.  And  it  was  evident,  before  the  close  of  the 
year,  that  they  had  created  an  envenomed  hostility. 
But  an  English  Protestant,  of  radical  proclivities  and 
already  less  than  lukewarm  in  his  attachment  to  Chris- 
tianity, would  not  be  likely  to  resent  their  application 
in  a  country  to  whose  past  he  was  not  attached,  and 
whose  present  condition  aroused  in  him  the  most 
enthusiastic  hope. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  were  graver  signs  of  disaster, 
which  even  a  youth  might  have  read  had  he  not  been 
over-sanguine.  The  legislature  sat  in  Paris,  where 
it  was  subject  to  the  threats  of  a  populace  which  had 
tasted  the  wine  of  violence.  Fanatical  men  governed 
the  city,  and  were  organizing  its  basest  elements  into 
an  instrument  of  their  will.  The  riots  and  bloodshed 
of  July  17  were  a  bad  omen  of  what  might  happen  again 
at  any  crisis.  The  Constituent  Assembly,  before  dis- 
solving on  September  30,  had  unfortunately  passed  a 
self-denying  ordinance  forbidding  the  re-election  of  its 
members,  and  on  that  date  many  of  the  steadiest  and 
most  experienced  men  disappeared  from  public  life. 
The  Legislative  Assembly,  which  took  up  the  dangerous 
task  on  October  1 ,  should  have  laboured  to  conciliate 


i79i]  STATE  OF  PUBLIC  AFFAIRS  137 

all  moderate  opinions  and  repel  all  extremists;  on  the 
contrary  it  embittered  the  Catholics  by  taking  severe 
measures  against  priests  who  would  not  swear  allegiance 
to  the  constitution ;  and  by  confiscating  the  property 
of  emigrant  nobles  it  exasperated  those  who  had  given 
asylum  to  these  refugees. 

We  taste,  however,  the  healthy  savour  which  pervades 
all  the  relations  of  republican  France  with  foreign 
Powers,  in  the  firm  declaration  which  the  Assembly, 
on  November  29,  1791,  required  the  King  to  send  to  the 
foreign  princes  who  were  assembling  their  forces  on  the 
frontier: 

"  Tell  them  that  France  sees  only  enemies  in  every 
place  where  they  permit  preparations  to  be  made  against 
her;  that  we  will  religiously  keep  our  oath  to  make  no 
conquest ;  that  we  offer  to  be  good  neighbours  and  to 
give  them  the  enviable  friendship  of  a  free  and  powerful 
country;  that  we  will  respect  their  laws,  their  customs, 
their  constitutions,  but  shall  require  their  respect  for 
our  own.  Tell  them  finally  that  if  the  princes  of  Ger- 
many continue  to  favour  preparations  made  against  the 
French,  the  French  will  carry  into  their  midst,  not  fire 
and  sword,  but  liberty  !  Let  them  calculate  what  result 
may  follow  the  awakening  of  nations." 

Wordsworth,  just  arrived  in  Paris,  must  have  felt  the 
thrill  of  this  eloquent  challenge. 

It  was  his  plan  to  pass  on  at  once  to  the  Valley  of  the 
Loire,  at  Orleans,  a  region  celebrated  then  as  now  for 
good  cheer,  friendly  inhabitants,  a  soft  climate,  smiling 
landscapes,  and  fine  old  royal  castles.  The  broad  and 
shallow  river  flows  with  a  lively  current  through  a 
fertile  plain  rich  in  orchards  and  wheat-fields,  or  under 
low  cliffs  of  soft  white  limestone  festooned  with  vines. 
In  its  blue  mirror  shakes  the  image  of  many  a  battle- 
mented  tower,  which  stood  firm  before  the  battering- 
ram  and  cannon,  at  Blois,  Amboise,  Luynes,  Langeais, 
Angers.  It  mocks  the  ever-during  walls  of  great  cathe- 
drals, at  Orleans  and  Tours,  with  its  perpetual  flash 
and  ceaseless  change.  Whether  in  the  Orleannais  or  in 
Touraine,  a  stranger  will  think  himself  in  the  heart  of 


138  IN  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE     [chap,  vn 

France.  Here  are  the  grim  ruins  of  mediaeval  castles, 
at  Loches  and  Chinon,  and  the  richly  broidered  resi- 
dences of  Francis  I.  and  Henry  II. — the  chateaux  of 
Chambord  and  Chenonceaux. 

For  an  Englishman  another  attraction  of  this  pleasant 
country  would  be  the  purity  of  the  French  spoken  by 
its  people.  We  have  no  means  of  knowing  how  long 
Wordsworth  expected  to  remain  in  France,  or  whether 
he  had  plans  more  definite  and  far-reaching  than  those 
given  for  him  by  his  sister.  He  intended  at  least  to 
spend  the  winter  at  Orleans. 

All  that  Wordsworth  says  in  his  autobiographical 
memoranda  about  his  sojourn  in  France  is  as  follows : 

"  In  the  autumn  of  1791  I  went  to  Paris,  where  I 
stayed  some  little  time,  and  then  went  to  Orleans,  with 
a  view  of  being  out  of  the  way  of  my  own  countrymen, 
that  I  might  learn  to  speak  the  language  fluently.  At 
Orleans,  and  Blois,  and  Paris,  on  my  return,  I  passed 
fifteen  or  sixteen  months.  It  was  a  stirring  time.  The 
King  was  dethroned  when  I  was  at  Blois,  and  the  mas- 
sacres of  September  took  place  when  I  was  at  Orleans, 
but  for  these  matters  see  also  the  Poem.  I  came  home 
before  the  execution  of  the  King." 

The  poem  is,  of  course,  "  The  Prelude,"  of  which 
the  ninth,  tenth,  and  eleventh  books  are  occupied  with 
his  experiences  in  that  period  and  their  effect  upon  his 
mind.  Even  if  we  suppose  that  his  letter  to  Mathews 
should  be  dated  October  instead  of  November  23 — and 
for  this  change  there  is  perhaps  warrant  in  "  The  Pre- 
lude," X.  236-239: 

Twice  had  the  trees  let  fall 
Their  leaves,  as  often  Winter  had  put  on 
His  hoary  crown,  since  I  had  seen  the  surge 
Beat  against  Albion's  shore — 

we  should  still  have  to  reduce  his  "  fifteen  or  sixteen 
months  "  to  less  than  fourteen.  The  accepted  belief 
that  he  returned  to  England  in  December,  1792,  is 
owing  entirely  to  a  statement  in  his  nephew's 
"  Memoirs  ":  "  '  William,'  says  his  sister,  in  a  letter 
bearing  date  22nd  December,  1792,  and  written  from  the 


i792]  PARIS  AND  ORLEANS  139 

house  of  Dr.  Cookson  at  Forncett,  '  is  in  London;  he 
writes  to  me  regularly,  and  is  a  most  affectionate 
brother.'  "  Miss  Wordsworth  was  exceedingly  careless 
in  dating  her  letters.  It  is  possible  that  this  one  was 
written  in  1793,  in  which  case  there  would  be  no  reason 
to  disbelieve  that  her  brother  may  have  remained  in 
France  a  month  longer,  or  until  some  time  in  January,  v/ 
1793,  but  not  so  late  as  the  21st,  when  the  King  was 
executed. 

The  poet  makes  no  attempt,  in  "  The  Prelude,"  to 
narrate  in  order  the  principal  details  of  this  momentous 
journey.     He    concentrates    attention    on    its    inward 
results.     Events,    places,    and    times,    are    blurred — it 
would  almost  seem  purposely — for  it  cannot  be  that,  after 
the  lapse  of  only  about  fifteen  years,  his  memory  would 
have  confused  Blois  and  Orleans,  or  betrayed  him  as  to 
the  city  where  he  made  one  of  his  most  valued  friend-  1 
ships.     The  poem  tells  us,  in  effect,  that  in  a  city  by  the   I 
Loire,  which  appears  from  the  context  to  have  been   I 
Orleans,  he  met  and  learned  to  love  a  man  whose  con-    ) 
versation  brought  about  in  him  a  second  crisis  of  soul, 
which  we  easily  perceive  was  comparable  only  to  the 
awakening  that  came  to  him  near  Hawkshead  in  1788, 
when  he  felt  himself  "  a  dedicated  spirit."     On  that 
former  occasion  he  realized  with  what  intensity  he  loved 
nature;  the  fervent  words  of  his  French  friend  Beaupuy 
taught  him  to  love  man.     Yet  MM.  Bussiere  and  Legouis 
have  abundantly  proved  that  not  Orleans,  but  Blois, 
was  the  scene  of  their  meeting  and  their  intercourse.* 

Only  one  of  the  many  letters  Wordsworth  must  have 
written  from  France  during  this  long  and  exciting  period 
has  ever  been  printed.  It  is  addressed  to  William 
Mathews  from  Blois.  Surely  the  poet's  nephew  could 
have  found  material  for  more  than  the  four  pages  he 
devotes  to  these  months  in  the  "  Memoirs,"  prepared  in 
1850.  A  not  unwarrantable  inference  from  this  silence 
is  that  the  young  traveller's  opinions,  and  perhaps  his 
conduct,  were  such  that  he  himself  and  his  family  de- 
sired in  later  years  to  suppress  nil  record  of  them,  except 

*   "  Le  General  Michel  Beaupuy,"  by  Bussiere  and  Legouis,  1891. 


140  IN  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE     [chap,  vn 

what  was  absolutely  necessary  in  order  to  understand 
"  The  Prelude."  One  carefully  written  paragraph  in 
the  Bishop's  "  Memoirs  "  of  his  uncle  looks,  indeed,  like 
an  apology  for  having  withheld  further  information. 
He  says  :* 

"  Wordsworth's  condition  in  France  was  a  very  critical 
one :  he  was  an  orphan,  young,  inexperienced,  impetuous, 
enthusiastic,  with  no  friendly  voice  to  guide  him,  in  a 
foreign  country,  and  that  country  in  a  state  of  revolu- 
tion; and  this  revolution,  it  must  be  remembered,  had 
not  only  taken  up  arms  against  the  monarchy  and  other 
ancient  institutions,  but  had  declared  war  against  Chris- 
tianity. The  most  licentious  theories  were  propounded ; 
all  restraints  wTere  broken;  libertinism  was  law.  He  was 
encompassed  with  strong  temptations ;  and  although  it 
is  not  the  design  of  the  present  work  to  chronicle  the 
events  of  his  life  except  so  far  as  they  illustrate  his 
writings,  yet  I  could  not  pass  over  this  period  of  it  with- 
out noticing  the  dangers  which  surround  those  who  in  an 
ardent  emotion  of  enthusiasm  put  themselves  in  a  posi- 
tion of  peril,  without  due  consideration  of  the  circum- 
stances which  ought  to  regulate  their  practice." 

Every  one  of  the  considerations  which  the  Bishop 
enumerates  is  a  reason  for  believing  that  this  was  the 
most  critical  period  of  the  poet's  life,  and  for  wishing  to 
know  more  precisely  how  he  was  affected,  to  what  length 
his  "  impetuous,  enthusiastic  "  temperament  carried 
him,  or  how  his  austere  self-control  and  his  English 
bringing-up  resisted  these  "  temptations."  Such  know- 
ledge would  give  us  his  moral  range.  Wanting  it,  we 
can  only  guess  the  reason  for  many  a  silence  and  many 
a  half-hint  in  his  works.  Nothing  could  "  illustrate 
his  writings  "  more  than  the  events  of  his  life  in  France. 
We  may  be  sure  that  at  his  age  and  in  his  surroundings, 
with  every  incitement  to  liberty  and  action,  he  was  not 
merely  an  idle  spectator  of  public  happenings.  One  is 
almost  forced  to  believe  that  he  had  a  closer  personal 
connection  with  the  life  about  him  than  has  yet  been 
revealed.  There  is  a  mystery,  perhaps  a  tragic  mystery, 
here,  of  which  we  feel  the  breath  in  many  a  line  of  other 

*  Vol.  I.,  p.  74. 


1792]  AN  UNHAPPY  ATTACHMENT  141 

poems  than  "  The  Prelude."  His  gloom,  and  the 
sorrowing  sympathy  of  his  sister,  for  several  years  after 
his  return  to  England;  his  long  correspondence  with 
persons  in  France,  to  which  she  anxiously  alludes  in 
her  Journal;  the  singular  absence  in  general  from  his 
poetry  of  the  most  common  poetic  motive:  its  irre- 
pressible outbursts,  irrepressible  but  half  disguised, 
in  several  of  the  most  passionate  and  beautiful 
lyrics  ever  inspired  by  the  love  of  woman — the  mind 
is  startled  with  a  reverent  surmise  that  something 
more  intimate  than  grief  for  a  lost  political  cause 
broke  his  heart  when  he  was  forced  to  quit  French 
soil.  For  apparently  he  went  home  considerably  later 
than  he  had  previously  intended,  and  his  return  seems 
not  to  have  been  voluntary.  His  interest  in  French 
affairs  was  then  at  its  highest  pitch,  and  was  become  a 
morbid  excitement.  He  dreamed  of  throwing  in  his 
lot  with  the  Girondists,  of  stepping  forward  as  a  leader 
against  Robespierre.  Who  knows  what  engagements 
of  the  heart  may  have  bound  him  to  the  country, 
whose  interests  he  henceforth,  through  many  years  of 
discouragement,  preferred  before  the  glory  of  England  ? 
And  who  knows  what  interdict,  stronger  than  the 
commands  of  his  uncles,  may  have  broken  the  charm 
and  driven  him  from  the  scene  of  his  hopes  ?  t) 

The  tie  that  bound  Wordsworth  to  France  at  this 
time  was  an  unfortunate  attachment  which  was  destined 
to  cast  a  shadow  over  his  life  for  many  years.  Where 
and  in  what  circumstances  it  began  I  cannot  say.  The 
object  of  his  rash  affection  bore  the  name  of  Annette, 
and  was  known  in  later  life  as  Madame  Vallon.  There 
is  every  reason  to  believe  that  in  its  general  features  the 
poem  entitled  "  Vaudracour  and  Julia  "  gives  an  account 
of  the  reasons  for  their  separation.  I  have  found 
evidence  that  Annette  belonged  to  a  royalist  family, 
and  it  may  well  be  that  the  objection  to  the  permanent 
bond  of  marriage  with  a  foreign  lad  of  twenty-two,  a 
republican,  a  free-thinker,  and  poor,  came  as  much 
from  the  side  of  her  relatives  as  of  his.  The  nobility 
of  his  character,  and  his  subsequent  conduct  towards 
Annette,  which  will  be  narrated  in  due  course,  make  it 


J 


J 


142  IN  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE     [chap,  vn 

impossible  to  suppose  that  he  abandoned  her  volun- 
tarily. We  must  remember,  in  thinking  of  his  original 
fault,  that  he  had  been  an  orphan  since  early  boyhood, 
that  his  guardians  and  teachers  had  been  indifferent  to 
his  fate,  that  society  towards  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century  was  lax  in  its  views  of  sexual  morality,  and, 
furthermore,  that  France  was  in  a  state  of  unnatural 
excitement. 

Annette  bore  him  a  daughter,  who  received  the  name 
Caroline.  After  his  return  to  England  he  kept  in  corre- 
spondence with  the  mother,  and  I  think  it  more  than 
likely,  comparing  Wordsworth's  expenditures  with  his 
income  during  the  next  ten  years,  that  he  contributed 
to  their  support.  Dorothy  Wordsworth  was  cognizant 
of  the  facts.  While  the  knowledge  saddened  and  per- 
turbed her,  it  never  weakened  her  love  for  her  brother; 
and  this  alone  would  be  sufficient  proof  to  me  that  he 
did  what  he  could  to  make  amends  for  his  false  step. 

The  letter  from  Blois,  to  which  reference  has  been 
made,  shows  that  in  May,  1792,  he  purposed  to  return  to 
England  before  the  next  spring,  and  to  take  orders, 
though  he  would  have  wished  to  defer  this  step.  His 
intention,  however,  was  to  engage,  together  with 
Mathews,  in  some  literary  undertaking.  He  writes  as 
follows  :* 

"  Blois, 
"May  17,  [1792]. 

"  Dear  Mathews, 

"  When  I  look  back  on  the  length  of  time  elapsed 
since  my  receipt  of  your  last  letter,  I  am  overwhelmed 
by  a  sense  of  shame  which  would  deprive  me  of  the 
courage  requisite  to  finish  this  sheet,  did  I  not  build 
upon  that  indulgence  which  always  accompanies  warm 
and  sincere  friendship.  Your  last  reached  me  just  at 
the  moment  when  I  was  busy  in  preparing  to  quit 
Orleans,  or  certainly  the  sentiments  which  it  breathes 
had  forced  from  me  an  immediate  answer.  Since  my 
arrival  day  after  day  and  week  after  week  have  stolen 
insensibly  over  my  head  with  inconceivable  rapidity. 
I  am  much  distressed  that  you  have  been  so  egregiously 

*  "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,"  I.  42.     Two  fragments  of  the 
letter  were  printed  in  the  "  Memoirs,"  Vol.  I.,  pp.  74  and  75. 


ifgi]  LETTER  FROM  BLOlS  143 

deceived  by  Mrs.  D.,  and  still  more  so  that  those  in- 
famous calumnies  prevent  you  from  taking  upon  you  an 
office  you  are  so  well  qualified  to  discharge.  It  gives 
me  still  more  heartfelt  concern  to  find  that  this  slander 
has  sunk  so  deep  upon  your  spirits.  Even  supposing, 
which  is  not  at  all  probable,  that  it  should  exclude  you 
from  the  clerical  office  entirely,  you  certainly  are  fur- 
nished with  talents  and  acquirements  which,  if  properly 
made  use  of,  will  enable  you  to  get  your  bread,  un- 
shackled by  the  necessity  of  professing  a  particular 
system  of  opinions. 

"  You  have  still  the  hope  that  we  may  be  connected 
in  some  method  of  obtaining  an  independence.     I  assure 
you  I  wish  it  as  much  as  yourself.     Nothing  but  resolu- 
tion is  necessary.     The  field  of  Letters  is  very  extensive, 
and  it  is  astonishing  if  we  cannot  find  some  little  corner, 
which  with  a  little  tillage  will  produce  us  enough  for  the 
necessities — nay,  even  the  comforts — of  life.     Your  resi- 
dence in  London  gives  you,  if  you  look  abroad,  an  ex- 
cellent   opportunity    of    starting    something    or    other. 
Pray  be  particular  in  your  answer  upon  this  subject. 
It  is  at  present  my  intention  to  take  orders,  in  the  ap- 
proaching winter  or  spring.     My  uncle  the  clergyman 
will  furnish  me  with  a  title.     Had  it  been  in  my  power, 
1  certainly  should    have  wished  to  defer  the  moment. 
But  though  I  may  not  be  resident  in  London,  I  need 
not  therefore  be  prevented  from  engaging  in  any  literary 
plan,  which  may  have  the  appearance  of  producing  a 
decent   harvest.     1    assure   you    again   and   again   that 
nothing    but    confidence    and    resolution    is    necessary. 
Fluency  in  writing  will   tread   fast  upon   the  heels   of 
practice,    and    elegance   and   strength   will   not    be   far 
behind.     I  hope  you  will  have  the  goodness  to  write  to 
me  soon,  when  you  will  enlarge  upon  this  head.     You 
say  you  have  many  schemes.     Submit  at  least  a  few  of 
them  to  my  examination.     Would  it  not  be  possible  for 
you  to  form  an  acquaintance  with  some  of  the  publish- 
ing booksellers  of  London,  from  whom  you  might  get 
some  hints  of  what  sort  of  works  would  be  the  most 
likely  to  answer  ? 

'  Till  within  a  few  days  I  nourished  the  pleasing  ex- 
pectation of  seeing  Jones  upon  the  banks  of  Loire.  But 
he  informs  me  that  at  the  earnest  request  of  the  Bishop 
of  Bangor  he  has  till  Michaelmas  taken  upon  [him]  the 
office  of  usher  in  a  school  which  the  Bishop  has  just 
built.     You  know  well  that  the  Welsh  Bishops  are  the 


144  IN  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE     [chap,  vn 

sole  patrons.  This  circumstance  will  connect  him  with 
D.  Warren,  and  I  hope  prepare  the  way  for  a  snug  little 
Welsh  living,  of  which  our  friend  is  certainly  well  de- 
serving. Terrot  some  time  ago  addressed  a  letter  to 
me  at  Orleans,  promising  me  that  it  should  soon  be 
followed  by  another,  in  which  he  represented  himself  as 
stickling  for  preferment,  not  in  the  Church  or  the  Army, 
but  in  the  Custom-house.  'Tis  all  well.  I  wish  heartily 
he  may  succeed.  Let  me  entreat  you  most  earnestly  to 
guard  against  that  melancholy,  which  appears  to  be 
making  daily  inroads  upon  your  happiness.  Educated 
as  you  have  been,  you  ought  to  be  above  despair.  You 
have  the  happiness  of  being  born  in  a  free  country, 
where  every  road  is  open,  and  where  talents  and  in- 
dustry are  more  liberally  rewarded  than  amongst  any 
other  nation  of  the  Universe. 

"  You  will  naturally  expect  that,  writing  from  a 
county  agitated  by  the  storms  of  a  Revolution,  my 
letter  should  not  be  confined  merely  to  us  and  our 
friends.  But  the  truth  is  that  in  London  you  have 
perhaps  a  better  opportunity  of  being  informed  of  the 
general  concerns  of  France,  than  in  a  petty  provincial 
town  in  the  heart  of  the  kingdom  itself.  The  annals  of 
the  department  are  all  with  which  I  have  a  better  op- 
portunity of  being  acquainted  than  you,  provided  you 
feel  sufficient  interest  in  informing  yourself.  The  hor- 
rors excited  by  the  relation  of  the  events  consequent 
upon  the  commencement  of  hostilities  is  general.  Not 
but  that  there  are  men  who  felt  a  gloomy  satisfaction 
from  a  measure  which  seemed  to  put  the  patriot  arm)' 
out  of  a  possibility  of  success.  An  ignominious  flight, 
the  massacre  of  their  general,  a  dance  performed  with 
savage  joy  round  his  burning  body,  the  murder  of  six 
prisoners,  are  events  which  would  have  arrested  the 
attention  of  the  reader  of  the  annals  of  Morocco,  or  of 
the  most  barbarous  of  savages.  The  approaching  sum- 
mer will  undoubtedly  decide  the  fate  of  France.  It  is 
almost  evident  that  the  patriot  army,  however  numer- 
ous, will  be  unable  [to]  withstand  the  superior  discipline 
of  their  enemies.  But  suppose  that  the  German  army 
is  at  the  gates  of  Paris,  what  will  be  the  consequence  ? 
It  will  be  impossible  to  make  any  material  alteration 
on  the  Constitution,  impossible  to  reinstate  the  clergy 
in  their  antient  guilty  splendour,  impossible  to  give  an 
existence  to  the  noblesse  similar  to  that  it  before  enjoyed, 
impossible  to  add  much  to  the  authority  of  the  King. 


i792]  POLITICAL  NEWS  145 

Yet  there  are  in  France  some  [millions?] — I  speak 
without  exaggeration — who  expect  that  this  will  take 
place. 

"  I  shall  expect  your  letter  with  impatience,  though, 
from  my  general  remissness,  I  little  deserve  this  atten- 
tion on  your  part.  I  shall  return  to  England  in  the 
autumn  or  the  beginning  of  winter.  I  am  not  without 
the  expectation  of  meeting  you,  a  circumstance  which, 
be  assured,  would  give  me  the  greatest  pleasure,  as  we 
might  then  more  advantageously  than  by  letter  consult 
upon  some  literary  scheme,  a  project  which  I  have 
much  at  heart.  Adieu.  I  remain,  my  dear  Mathews, 
"  Your  most  affectionate  friend, 

"  W.  Wordsworth." 

I  am  deeply  indebted  to  the  poet's  grandson,  Mr.  Gor- 
don Wordsworth,  for  permission  to  use  a  hitherto__uji=-- 
published   letter,  and  part  of  another,  which  throw  more 
li^rht  at  last  upon  this  obscure  period  of  Wordsworth's  life : 

[William  to  Richard  Wordsivorth,   1791.] 

"Orleans.     Decbr.  igth.     My  address: 
"  a  Monsr  Wordsworth, 
"  chez  Monsr  Gillet  du  Vivier, 
"  Rue  Rovale, 

"  a.  Orleans. 

II  Dear  Brother, 

"  I  have  not  been  able  to  write  to  you  as  soon  as 
I  wished  in  consequence  of  the  time  that  my  journey 
took  me,  and  of  a  wish  to  defer  my  letter  till  I  could 
give  you  some  account  of  my  arrangements.  I  was 
detained  at  Brighthelmstone  from  Tuesday  till  Saturday 
evening,  which  time  must  have  passed  in  a  manner 
extremely  disagreeable  if  I  had  not  bethought  me  of 
introducing  myself  to  Mrs.  Charlotte  Smith  ;  she  received; 
me  in  the  politest  manner,  and  showed  me  every  pos-\ 
sible  civility.  This  with  my  best  affection  you  will  be 
so  good  as  to  mention  to  Capt"  and  Mrs.  Wordsworth. 
On  Sunday  morning  I  got  to  Dieppe,  and  the  same 
night  to  Rouen,  where  I  was  detained  two  days  for  the 
diligence,  and  on  the  Wednesday  night  I  reached  Paris, 
where  I  remained  till  the  Monday  following,  and  on 
the  Tuesday  arrived  here  just  a  fortnight  after  quitting 
London. 

1.  10 


/ 


1 46  IN  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE     [chap,  vn 

"  I  will  now  give  you  a  criterion  by  which  you  may 
judge  of  my  expenses  here.  I  had  in  Paris  six  hundred 
and  forty-three  livres  for  £20 — I  give  for  my  lodging, 
which  is  a  very  handsome  apartment  on  the  first  floor, 
30  livres  per  month  if  I  stay  only  three  months,  27  if 
I  stay  six,  and  24  and  ten  sous,  viz.  halfpence,  if  I  stay 
8  months — my  board,  which  is  in  the  same  house,  with 
two  or  three  officers  of  the  Cavalry  and  a  young  gentle- 
man of  Paris,  costs  me  fifty  livres  per  month,  breakfast 
excluded.  There  are  other  little  expenses  which  it  would 
not  be  easy  to  sum  up,  but  this,  as  you  will  perceive,  is 
the  bulk,  and  I  think  extremely  reasonable  considering 
the  comfortable  manner  in  which  I  live.  Mrs.  Smith, 
who  was  so  good  as  to  give  me  letters  for  Paris,  fur- 
nished me  with  one  for  Miss  Williams,  an  English  lady, 
who  resided  here  lately,  but  was  gone  before  I  arrived. 
This  circumstance  was  a  considerable  disappointment 
to  me;  however,  I  have  in  some  respects  remedied  it  by 
introducing  myself  to  a  Mr.  Foxlow,  an  Englishman  who 
has  set  up  a  cotton  manufactory  here— I  called  upon 
him  yesterday,  and  he  received  me  very  politely.  He 
and  Mrs.  Foxlow  are  going  into  the  country  for  a  few 
days,  but  when  they  return  I  shall,  I  flatter  myself,  by 
their  means  be  introduced  to  the  best  society  this  place 
affords. 

"  I  have  as  yet  no  acquaintance  but  in  the  house,  the 
young  Parisian,  and  the  rest  of  the  tables,  and  one 
f  amity  which  I  find  very  agreeable,  and  with  which  I 
became  acquainted  by  the  circumstance  of  going  to  look 
at  their  lodgings,  which  I  should  have  liked  extremely 
to  have  taken,  but  I  found  them  too  dear  for  me. 

I  have 

of  my  evenings  there you 

have  heard  of  the  news  which  is 

in  France  before  this  letter 

you ;  that  the  King  has  been 

National  Assembly  and  that 

are  going  to  make  the  emigran  [MS.  torn  away] 

We  are  all  perfectly  quiet  here 

likely  to  continue  so ;  I  find 

all  the  people  of  any  opulen 

aristocrates  and  all  the  oth 

democrates — I  had  imagined  th 

there   were   some   people   of  wealth   and   circumstance 

favourers  of  the  revolution,  but  here  there  is  not  one 

to  be  found  .  .  . 


Qb    A -a,       ''  *"% 

J         , 

■t^-o-O      ~*i-4—7'     —      £^v  ^» 

^yUL~~C     *!..-*-ty^  ^*~-^  T*£/ 


Wordsworth's  letter  from  Orleans,   December,  1792 

Facsimile  of  page  1 


[Vol.  I.,  p.  M6 


i79i]  LETTER  FROM  ORLEANS  147 

"  I  have  every  prospect  of  likeing  this  place  extremely 
well;  the  country  tho'  flat  is  pleasant,  and  abounds  in 
agreeable  walks,  especially  by  the  side  of  the  Loire, 
which  is  a  very  magnificent  river.  I  am  not  yet  able 
to  speak  French  with  decent  accuracy,  but  must  of 
course  improve  very  rapidly ;  I  do  not  intend  to  take  a 
master — I  think  I  can  do  nearly  as  well  without  one, 
and  it  would  be  a  very  considerable  augmentation  of 
my  expenses. 

"  You  will  give  my  best  love  to  John,  and  repeat  to 
Mrs.  and  Captn  Wordsworth  an}r  parts  of  this  letter 
you  may  think  will  interest  them,  with  my  kind  remem- 
berances.  Compts.  to  the  Gilpins.  If  you  see  Raincock 
and  Fisher  say  I  am  sufficiently  pleased  with  my  situa- 
tion, and  tell  the  former  he  shall  hear  from  me  soon. 

"  I  have  said  nothing  of  Paris  and  its  splendours;  it 
is  too  copious  a  theme;  besides,  I  shall  return  that  way 
and  examine  it  much  more  minutely.  I  was  at  the 
National  Assembly,  introduced  by  a  member  of  whose 
acquaintance  I  shall  profit  on  my  return  to  Paris. 

"  Adieu,  Adieu." 

[Unsigned.] 
[Post  mark  illegible — date  possibly  Dec.  27.] 
Addressed  to  Mr.  Wordsworth, 
A.  Parkins,  Esq., 
Gen.  Post  Off., 
London, 
Angleterre. 

Endorsed  by  igth  DecT  1791 

Richard  Wordsworth.  WmW.  ]       Letter 

to       •         from 
R.  W.  I      Orleans.* 

The  Miss  Williams  whom  he  mentions  was  un-' 
doubtedly  Helen  Maria  Williams,  the  authoress.      She 

*  Brighthelmstone  was  Brighton.  Mrs.  Charlotte  Smith  was  a  well- 
known  poetess.  Mr.  Gordon  Wordsworth  writes  to  me:  "  We  have  a  copy 
of  her  '  Elegiac  Sonnets,'  fifth  edition,  1789,  with  '  W.  Wordsworth,  St. 
John's,'  inscribed  on  the  title-page.  Her  father-in-law  was  a  director  of 
the  East  India  Company,  in  whose  fleet  Captain  John  Wordsworth,  senior, 
commanded  the  Earl  of  Abergavenny  (or  an  earlier  ship  bearing  the  same 
name)  before  his  first  cousin,  Captain  John  Wordsworth,  junior,  who  was 
lost  with  her  in  1805."  He  has  informed  me,  also,  that  there  was  more 
than  one  Raincock  contemporary  with  Wordsworth  at  Hawkshead  and 
Cambridge,  and  that  Fisher  and  Gilpin  are  north-country  names,  and  like- 
wise Wilkinson,  mentioned  in  the  next  letter.  It  would  be  extremely 
interesting  to  know  who  the  member  of  the  National  Assembly  was  to 
whom  the  poet  refers. 


148  IN  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE     [chap,  wi 

was  a  celebrity  at  this  time  both  in  Britain  and  in 
France,  well  known  in  the  former  country  as  a  poet  and 
novelist,  and  in  the  latter  as  a  member  of  a  group  of 
English  residents  who  sympathized  with  the  Revolu- 
tion. She  had  gone  to  France  in  1788  to  live  with 
her  sister  Cecilia,  who  had  married  a  French  Protestant 
minister,  and  had  become  acquainted  with  many 
prominent  members  of  the  Girondist  party,  a  privilege 
she  was  to  expiate  during  the  Terror,  when  she  was 
imprisoned  by  Robespierre.  She  wrote  several  descrip- 
tive and  anecdotal  books  on  France  and  Switzerland, 
all  of  them  inspired  by  an  intense  and  enthusiastic 
interest  in  the  Revolutionary  cause.  Though  she 
travelled  extensively  and  was  a  close  observer,  the 
authority  of  her  works  has  been  contemptuously  denied, 
partly  because  of  their  bias,  but  even  more,  I  think, 
through  the  partisan  prejudice  of  her  critics.  She  was 
accused  of  being  the  mistress  of  John  Hurford  Stone,  or 
of  being  secretly  married  to  him.  Stone,  a  native  of 
Taunton  in  Somersetshire,  was  another  English  Revolu- 
tionist, associated  with  Price  and  Priestley  in  his  own 
country,  and  with  Paine  in  France.  He  was  chairman 
at  the  famous  banquet  at  White's  Hotel  in  Paris, 
November  18,  1792,  organized  by  certain  Englishmen 
to  celebrate  the  victories  won  by  French  arms,  when 
Sir  Robert  Smith  and  Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald  are  said 
to  have  renounced  their  titles,  and  toasts  were  drunk  to 
the  speedy  abolition  of  all  hereditary  titles  and  feudal 
distinctions.* 

One  of  the  most  curious  facts  in  Wordsworth's  life 
is  that  a  sonnet  was  printed  in  The  European  Magazine, 
vol.  xi.,  p.  202  (March,  1787),  over  the  signature  "  Axi- 
ologus,"  and  with  the  title  "  On  Seeing  Miss  Helen 
Maria  Williams  Weep  at  a  Tale  of  Distress."  It  was 
never  reprinted  in  any  volume  of  Wordsworth's  works 
during  his  lifetime,  but  both  Professor  Knight 
("  Poems,"  viii.  209)  and  Mr.  T.  Hutchinson  (Words- 
worth's "  Poetical  Works,"  p.  619)  have  admitted  it 
into  the  canon.     In  April,  1787,  Wordsworth  was  only 

*  "  Memoirs  of  Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald,"  I.  172. 


i79i]  HELEN  MARIA  WILLIAMS  149 

sixteen.  Miss  Williams  was  eight  years  older,  and 
already  known  as  an  author.  As  a  composition,  the 
sonnet  is  packed  full  of  almost  all  the  faults  supposed  to 
be  characteristics  of  pre-Wordsworthian  verse.  "  Axi- 
ologus  "  is  a  Greek  compound  which  may  be  trans- 
lated "  Wordsworth,"  and  was  used  by  Coleridge  as  an 
appellation  for  him.  Where  the  boy  Wordsworth 
could  have  seen  Miss  Williams  weep,  in  1 787,  is  a  mystery 
to  me.* 

Miss  Williams  was  a  friend  of  Samuel  Rogers.  Mrs. 
Barbauld,in  a  letter  to  him,  July  13,  1 791,  says:  "  Per- 
haps you  know  that  Mrs.  Williams  and  Cecilia  are  set  out 
for  France,  and  that  Helen  and  the  rest  of  the  family 
are  soon  to  follow.  They  pay  a  visit  to  their  old  friends 
at  Rouen  before  they  settle  at  Orleans. "f 

Through  the  kindness  of  the  late  Henry  J.  Roby,  of 
Lancrigg,  I  was  permitted,  in  1907,  to  copy  a  manu- 
script containing  many  valuable  bits  of  information  re- 
garding Wordsworth.  It  is  entitled  "  Memories  of 
William  Wordsworth  (The  Poet  Laureate  from  1842  to 
1850)  made  for  her  Children,  by  the  late  Mrs.  John 
Davy,    from    1844    to    1850   (Mrs.    Fletcher,    sister   of 

*  Wordsworth,  at  the  time  of  his  death,  possessed  Helen  Maria  Wil- 
liams's "  Letters  from  France,"  two  volumes,  1795;  and  also  "  Poems  by 
H.  M.  Williams,"  in  which  he  had  written:  "  Sent  to  me  by  the  Author 
from  Paris — W.  W."  Since  I  could  hardly  believe  that  a  schoolboy  at 
I  lawkshead  could  have  written  the  sonnet.  I  looked  through  many  numbers 
of  The  European  Magazine  before  and  after  March,  1787,  and  found  that 
its  poetry  department  contained  a  large  quantity  of  verse  by  children,  and 
that  effusions  upon  living  authors  were  a  favourite  feature.  There  is, 
indeed,  in  the  number  for  August,  1787,  another  sonnet  to  Miss  Helen 

Maria  Williams,  signed  "  J.  B o."     In  the  November  number  there 

is  a  "  Sonnet  Occasioned  by  Reading  Rousseau's  Confessions,"  which  bears 
a  rather  striking  resemblance,  in  its  metrical  tone  and  its  method  of  state- 
ment, to  passages  in  Wordsworth's  "  An  Evening  Walk." 

Henry  Crabb  Robinson  states  in  his  diary  that  he  called  on  Helen  Maria 
Williams  in  Paris,  September  4,  1814.  "  We  conversed,"  he  says,  "  a 
little  on  literary  subjects.  Mrs.  C.  [Mrs.  Clarkson,  wife  of  the  Abolitionist, 
and  a  great  friend  of  the  Wordsworths]  and  I  repeated  some  .sonnets,  etc., 
by  Wordsworth,  of  whom  Miss  W.  had  never  heard  before."  In  1820, 
during  a  visit  to  Paris  with  the  Wordsworths,  Robinson  saw  Miss  Williams 
more  than  once,  and  has  a  good  deal  to  say  about  her  in  the  unpublished 
manuscript  of  his  diary.     The  Wordsworths,  too,  visited  her  at  this  time. 

t  Clayden,  "  The  Early  Life  of  Samuel  Rogers,"  p.  179. 


ISO  IN  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE     [chap,  vn 

Lady  Richardson,  husband  Dr.  Davy,  brother  of  Sir 
Humphry  Davy)."  In  this  document,  under  date  of 
January  16,  1843,  appears  the  following  passage: 

"  An  agreeable  little  dinner-party — Mr.  Wordsworth, 
Miss  Fenwick,  Mr.  Crabb  Robinson,  and  others.  Mr. 
Wordsworth,  on  entering  our  little  parlour,  seemed  to 
have  about  him  the  remains  of  some  unpleasant  mood 
of  mind,  but  very  soon  after  sitting  down  to  dinner 
the  cloud  cleared  from  his  venerable  face,  and,  as  it 
seemed,  from  his  mind.  My  Mother  and  he  went  back 
to  reminiscences  of  the  olden  time — the  early  days  of 
the  French  Revolution.  He  spoke  of  Helen  Maria 
Williams  and  Mrs.  Charlotte  Smith,  on  which  my 
Mother  took  up  an  old  favourite  sonnet  of  hers, 

'  Queen  of  the  silver  bowl,  by  thy  pale  beam,' 

and  she  and  Mr.  Wordsworth  repeated  it  together  in  a 
sort  of  duet,  their  fine  voices  in  happy  concert." 

When  he  came  to  France,  in  November,  1791,  Words- 
worth, as  we  have  seen,  proceeded  at  once  to  Paris. 
Here  he  visited,  as  he  relates  in  the  ninth  book  of  "  The 
Prelude," 

In  haste  each  spot  of  old  or  recent  fame, 
The  latter  chiefly. 

He  sat  in  the  open  sun  where  only  a  few  months  before 
the  sunless  dungeons  of  the  Bastille  had  been,  and 
pocketed  a  stone  as  a  relic,  yet  without  much  enthu- 
siasm, and  affecting  more  emotion  than  he  felt.  He 
was  too  young,  too  little  versed  in  history,  to  care  as 
much  for  these  signs  of  the  times  as  for  the  placid  works 
of  art,  among  which  he  made  a  rather  poor  choice  of 
the  Magdalen  of  Le  Brum*  The  fact  of  the  Revolution 
must  have  been  brought  home  to  him  sharply  enough, 
however,  when  he  visited  the  Hall  of  the  Assembly, 
the  Jacobin  Club,  and  the  Palais  Royal: 

In  both  her  clamorous  Halls, 
The  National  Synod  and  the  Jacobins, 
I  saw  the  Revolutionary  Power 
Toss  like  a  ship  at  anchor,  rocked  by  storms. 

*  This  picture  enjoyed  peculiar  notoriety,  because  it  was  supposed  to 
be  a  portrait  of  Madame  de  la  Valliere.  Joseph  Jekyll,  a  few  years  before, 
made  a  great  point  of  seeing  it. 


1791-1792]  ON  THE  LOIRE  151 

He  stayed  only  four  days  in  Paris  before  going  south  to 
Orleans.  Here  he  spent  part  of  the  winter,  and  then 
removed  to  Blois,  a  smaller  town,  forty  miles  farther 
down  the  Loire.  He  was,  according  to  his  autobio- 
graphical memoranda,  at  Orleans  again  when  the 
prisoners  were  massacred  in  September,  1792.  Accord- 
ing to  his  own  statement  in  "  Descriptive  Sketches  " 
(lines  760-763,  original  edition),  he  was  at  Orleans  in 
October.  He  spent  some  time  in  Paris  once  more, 
on  his  return  journey  to  England,  and  was  in  his  own 
country  certainly  before  the  end  of  January,  1793,  and 
perhaps  before  the  end  of  December,  1792.  He  does 
not  distinguish  in  "  The  Prelude  "  between  Orleans  and 
Blois,  but  it  seems  likely  that  the  following  passage 
(Book  IX.,  lines  81 -no)  describes  his  life  in  the  latter 
city: 

But  hence  to  my  more  permanent  abode 
I  hasten;  there,  by  novelties  in  speech, 
Domestic  manners,  customs,  gestures,  looks, 
And  all  the  attire  of  ordinary  life, 
Attention  was  engrossed;  and,  thus  amused, 
I  stood  'mid  those  concussions,  unconcerned, 
Tranquil  almost,  and  careless  as  a  flower 
Glassed  in  a  greenhouse,  or  a  parlour  shrub 
That  spreads  its  leaves  in  unmolested  peace. 
While  every  bush  and  tree,  the  country  through, 
Is  shaking  to  the  roots :  indifference  this 
Which  may  seem  strange:  but  I  was  unprepared 
With  needful  knowledge,  had  abruptly  passed 
Into  a  theatre,  whose  stage  was  filled 
And  busy  with  an  action  far  advanced. 
Like  others,  I  had  skimmed,  and  sometimes  read 
With  care,  the  master-pamphlets  of  the  day;* 
Nor  wanted  such  half-insight  as  grew  wild 
Upon  that  meagre  6oil,  helped  out  by  talk 
And  public  news;  but  having  never  seen 
A  chronicle  that  might  suffice  to  show 
Whence  the  main  organs  of  the  public  power 
Had  sprung,  their  transmigrations,  when  and  how 
Accomplished,  giving  thu6  unto  events 
A  form  and  body ;  all  things  were  to  me 
Loose  and  disjointed,  and  the  affections  left 

*  In  Wordsworth's  library,  as  catalogued  after  his  death,  was  a  bundle 
of  "French  Pamphlets  and  Ephemera";  also  Rousseau's  "  Emile," 
edition  of  1762,  and  "  Confessions,"  edition  of  1782. 


i52  IN  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE     [chap.  Vn 

Without  a  vital  interest.     At  that  time, 
Moreover,  the  first  storm  was  overblown, 
And  the  strong  hand  of  outward  violence 
Locked  up  in  quiet. 

There  were  at  that  time  in  Orleans  and  Blois  several 
of  those  literary  and  philosophical  societies  which  were 
so  numerous  in  the  large  French  towns  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  With  a  kindness  towards  strangers  which  is 
traditional  in  the  Orleannais  and  in  Touraine,  one  or 
more  of  these  academies  admitted  the  tall,  rather  im- 
pressive-looking youth  to  their  reunions.  Travellers 
were  rare,  and  Englishmen  in  high  favour.  By  a  very 
quick  transition  in  the  poem,  Wordsworth  gives  the 
impression,  although  he  says  he  "  gradually  withdrew  " 
from  these  circles,  that  he  turned  against  them  suddenly, 
and  that  the  conversion  took  place  at  Orleans,  whereas 
it  was  in  reality  operated  at  Blois,  and  by  slow  degrees  :* 

Night  by  night 
Did  I  frequent  the  formal  haunts  of  men, 
Whom,  in  the  city,  privilege  of  birth 
Sequestered  from  the  rest,  societies 
Polished  in  arts,  and  in  punctilio  versed; 
Whence,  and  from  deeper  causes,  all  discourse 
Of  good  and  evil  of  the  time  was  shunned 
With  scrupulous  care;  but  these  restrictions  soon 
Proved  tedious,  and  I  gradually  withdrew 
Into  a  noisier  world,  and  thus  ere  long 
Became  a  patriot;  and  my  heart  was  all 
Given  to  the  people,  and  my  love  was  theirs. 


*  "  Prelude,"  IX.  113.  Orleans,  being  a  cathedral  city,  was  conserva- 
tive and  aristocratic.  We  may,  perhaps,  leave  out  of  account  a  Society 
of  Agriculture,  Letters,  Sciences,  and  Arts,  that  had  been  founded  at 
Orleans  about  ten  years  before.  In  1784  it  was  finally  called  the  Royal 
Society  of  Physics,  Natural  History,  and  Arts.  Benjamin  Franklin  was 
admitted  to  honorary  membership  in  1785.  It  had  a  very  limited  mem- 
bership, and  was  not  at  all  the  kind  of  academy  to  which  an  unknown  or 
undistinguished  stranger  would  be  elected.  See  Eugene  Bambinet,  "  His- 
toire  de  la  Ville  d'Orleans,"  1888.  But  Bambinet  mentions  the  existence 
in  January,  1791,  of  "  a  social  club  for  conversing  about  the  news."  He 
also  refers  (vol.  v.,  p.  1047)  to  two  clubs  in  1790,  which  were  evidently  of 
an  aristocratic  character,  such  as  Wordsworth  describes,  for  "  on  the 
eleventh  of  May,  1 790,  they  were  menaced  by  outrages  and  insults  addressed 
to  some  of  their  members;  they  were  threatened  by  a  certain  ferment," 
and  appealed  for  protection  to  the  Mayor,  who  gave  them  no  very  quieting 


i792]  WITH  THE  ARISTOCRATS  153 

The  steps  by  which  he  reached  this  position  are  de- 
scribed in  the  rest  of  the  ninth  book.     The  time  was  the  v 
spring  and  summer  of  1792. 

Three  features  of  public  life  in  Blois  would  neces- 
sarily interest  an  intelligent  observer  in  1792.  One 
was  the  attitude  taken  by  the  garrison,  which  had  been  / 
partly  "  purged  "  the  year  before,  and  was  now  serving 
as  a  centre  of  Revolutionary  propaganda.  Another 
and  even  more  dramatic  feature  was  the  conduct  of 
Gregoire,  the  republican  Bishop  of  Blois,  who  was  one 
of  the  most  eminent  members  of  the  National  Conven- 
tion. He  was  by  far  the  most  striking  personality  in  1 
the  little  city.  A  third  feature  was  the  political  club 
known  as  the  Friends  of  the  Constitution.  Two  Revo- 
lutionary clubs  were  formed  at  Blois  early  in  the  pre- 
ceding year,  the  one  just  mentioned  and  another  called 
the  Popular  Society.  They  were  presently  merged 
under  the  name  of  the  former.*  The  organization  thus 
constituted  was  the  means  by  which  the  Jacobin  Club 
of  Paris  exercised  an  influence  over  local  affairs.  It 
served  also  as  a  blower  to  the  fire  of  Revolutionary 
sentiment.  It  sat  at  first  in  one  of  the  halls  of  the 
abbey  of  St.  Laumer,  and  afterwards  in  the  church  of 
the  Jacobin  Order,  as  if  imitating  the  parent  society.     I 


answer.  Apart  from  these,  I  have  found  no  traces  of  what  Wordsworth 
describes,  nor  has  the  obliging  head  of  the  Orleans  Public  Library  been 
able  to  find  any. 

At  Blois  1  have  made  careful  search  for  proofs  of  the  existence  in  179-j 
of  a  literary  or  social  club  frequented  by  people  of  the  aristocratic  party. 
According  to  a  monograph  by  M.  de  la  Saussaye,  read  at  a  sitting  of  the 
Societe  des  Sciences  et  des  Lettres  at  Blois,  August  28,  1834,  entitled 
"  Precis  des  Sciences  etdes  Lettres  dans  le  Blesois,"  there  were  no  literary 
societies  at  Blois  in  the  Revolutionary  period,  except  an  attempt  at  some- 
thing of  the  sort  in  1792  called  the  Societe  d' Emulation,  whose  ostensible 
purpose  was  a  description  and  history  of  the  Department  of  Loir-et-Cher. 
It  did  not  last  long,  and  had  a  very  special  and  to  a  foreigner  uninteresting 
character.  I  notice,  however,  that  according  to  M.  A.  Trouessart  ("  La 
Commune  de  Blois,  d'apres  les  Registres  Municipaux,"  Vol.  II.,  p.  530) 
there  was  a  literary  society  in  Blois  in  1795,  and  on  p.  541  M.  Trouessart 
says  that  some  time  later  a  municipal  measure  was  taken  to  abolish  two 
literary  societies.  It  is  possible  that  some  of  the  aristocrats  of  Blois  and 
officers  opposed  to  the  Revolution  met  under  such  guise  in  1792. 

*  See  L.  Bergevin  and  A.  Dupre,  "  L'Histoire  dc  Blois,"  1 .  1 75. 


154  IN  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE     [chap,  vn 

have  seen  a  manuscript  roll  of  its  members,  in  the 
Departmental  Archives  at  Blois.  They  numbered 
nearly  two  hundred,  and  among  them  were  persons  of 
every  walk  of  life,  clergy  and  laymen,  rich  and  poor,  old 
men  and  young.  Under  certain  restrictions  the  public 
were  admitted  to  its  meetings,  which  for  a  long  time 
were  held  daily.  So  intense  was  the  interest  in  funda- 
mental and  purely  ideal  questions  that,  even  when  there 
was  no  news  from  Paris  to  discuss,  crowds  assembled 
every  evening  to  hear  the  debates  in  this  club  on  the 
rights  of  man,  the  relations  of  Church  and  State,  new 
methods  of  education,  and  the  principles  of  government. 
Special  and  still  more  open  sessions  were  held  on  Sunday, 
at  which  patriotic  songs  were  sung,  poems  recited,  and 
the  best  speeches  of  the  week  repeated.  I  have  read 
the  deliberations  of  this  society,  preserved  in  manuscript 
in  the  Library  at  the  Chateau  of  Blois,  and  found  in 
them  a  curious  mixture  of  naive  enthusiasm,  hopeful- 
ness, and  devotion,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  shrewd  and 
insolent  interference  with  local  government  on  the  other. 
The  fanaticism  of  these  levellers  was  mitigated  by  a 
persuasion  that  peace  and  good-will  were  their  ultimate 
objects. 

An  intelligent  young  foreigner  would  of  course  hear  of 
these  meetings  and  desire  to  attend  them.  They  were 
the  local  representation  of  the  great  drama  which  was 
being  enacted  all  over  France.  Wordsworth  must  have 
been  specially  attracted,  because  he  already  sympa- 
thized with  the  general  movement,  and  also  because  he 
wished  to  learn  French.  What  better  exercise  for  his 
ear  could  he  have  found  than  these  lively  debates  ?  At 
the  best,  Blois  is  and  was  a  dull  town.  The  Revolu- 
tionary club  furnished  an  unusual  opportunity  for 
amusement  as  well  as  instruction.  There  were  prob- 
ably very  few  English  in  Blois.  Joseph  Jekyll,  an 
observant  youth,  had  found  only  one  Englishman  there 
in  1775.*     British  subjects  were  regarded  with  favour 

*  My  thanks  are  due  to  Mr.  Thomas  Hutchinson  for  calling  my  atten- 
tion to  "  The  Correspondence  of  Mr.  Joseph  Jekyll."  Jekyll,  a  lively 
young  man  of  fortune,  spent  many  weeks  at  Orleans  and  Blois  in  1775. 


1792]  A  REPUBLICAN  CLUB  155 

at  this  moment  in  France.  Their  ancestors  had  freed 
themselves  from  tyranny  and  bequeathed  to  them  a 
liberal  government. 

At  the  sitting  of  the  Friends  of  the  Constitution  on 
February  3,  1792,  "  A  member  asked  to  have  the 
floor,  and  proposed  two  Englishmen  for  membership, 
requesting  that  they  should  be  dispensed  from  taking 
the  oath,  as  foreigners  and  not  naturalized.  The  matter 
being  discussed,  it  was  decided  that  they  should  not  be 
admitted,  but  that  nevertheless  they  might  attend  the 
meetings."* 

It  is  possible,  and,  I  think,  even  probable,  that  Words- 
worth was  one  of  these  two  Englishmen.  If  he  was, 
the  length  of  his  stay  at  Blois  becomes  practically 
settled  as  not  less  than  seven  months. 

In  the  meanwhile  national  events  had  happened  of  a  / 
nature  to  repel  the  indifferent  rather  than  to  make  " 
them  converts.  The  first  impetus  of  the  Revolution 
had  subsided.  The  membership  of  the  Legislative 
Assembly  was  less  distinguished  and  able  than  that  of 
the  Constituent.  Its  work  for  the  first  three  months 
was  limited  almost  entirely  to  the  thorny  and  dolorous 


He  found  the  latter  place  anything  but  dull.  He  mentions  at  least  fifteen 
French  families  he  knew  there.  His  acquaintance  extended  to  the  pos- 
sessors of  many  of  the  great  chateaux  in  the  neighbourhood — Herbault, 
Menars,  Saumery,  Amboise.  He  describes  in  letters  to  his  father  the  gay 
life  he  led.  They  echo  with  the  laughter  of  girls  and  the  rhythm  of  dancing 
feet.  One  is  reminded  of  the  opening  chapter  of  "  Le  Vicomte  de  Brage- 
lonne."  Though  only  seventeen  years  lay  between  Jekyll's  visit  and 
Wordsworth's,  the  last  three  of  them  must  have  made  a  vast  difference. 
The  careless  gaiety  of  the  earlier  time  became  a  thing  long  past,  and  even 
through  Jekyll's  recital  of  pleasure  and  "  gallantry,"  through  the  tinkle 
of  carnival  music,  we  hear  the  approaching  storm  and  perceive  why  it  had 
to  come.  He  watched  a  man  being  broken  on  the  wheel  in  the  great 
square  of  Orleans  for  burglary;  he  saw  "  three  hundred  wretches  chained 
by  the  neck  like  dogs,"  some  of  them,  who  had  undergone  the  torture, 
scarcely  able  to  support  themselves,  pass  through  Blois  in  one  day,  and 
fed  there  on  the  ground  in  the  market-place,  on  their  way  to  the  galleys 
at  Brest.  Even  this  light-hearted  boy  remarked  of  the  country-people  : 
"  Ignorance  approaches  so  near  to  barbarity,  that  I  declare,  when  we 
inquired  our  way,  the  children  kept  aloof,  for  fear,  as  they  said,  that  the 
strangers  would  hurt  them." 

*  "  Registres  de  la  Socidte  des  Amis  de  la  Constitution,"  p.  115.     Manu- 
script in  the  Library  of  the  Chateau  of  Blois. 


156  IN  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE     [chap,  vn 

•subject  of  punishing  emigrant  nobles  and  non-juring 
priests.  It  was  decreed  that  all  emigrant  nobles  who 
did  not  return  by  January  i,  1792,  should  lose  their 
property  and  be  condemned  to  death.  The  King  vetoed 
this  decree.  Hostile  armies  were  assembling  on  the 
northern  and  western  borders,  and  negotiations,  mani- 
festly insincere,  were  going  on  between  the  King,  in  the 
name  of  the  nation,  and  the  foreign  princes  whose  one 
desire  was  to  give  back  to  him  the  reality  of  power. 
There  was  actual  danger  from  the  royalist  volunteers 
mobilizing,  to  the  number  of  about  23,000,  under  the 
Prince  of  Conde  at  Worms.  Coblentz  was  a  centre  of 
intrigue  against  the  nation.  There  was  a  plot  to  capture 
Strassburg.  The  Assembly  very  naturally  and  correctly 
surmised  that  the  King  and  Queen,  together  with  the 
Emperor  Leopold  and  the  rulers  of  the  South  German 
States,  were  in  correspondence  on  these  subjects.  After 
two  months'  retirement  at  Arras,  his  birthplace,  Robes- 

z  pierre,  "  the  incorruptible,"  returned  to  Paris  on 
November  28,  1 791 ,  the  very  day  after  Wordsworth 
entered  the  city.  Throughout  the  winter  the  Jacobin 
Club  pursued  a  set  policy  of  slander  and  suspicion,  lest 
a  reaction  in  favour  of  moderate  laws  and  a  limited 
monarchy  should  gain  headway.  They  made  the  most 
of  the  King's  veto,  destroying  the  remnants  of  his 
popularity  and  of  that  of  his  supporters.  Lafayette 
resigned  his  militar}-  command  and  was  defeated  by  the 
Jacobins  when  he  stood  for  election  as  Mayor  of  Paris. 
The  city  was  become  openly  republican.  It  recognized 
in  the  Jacobin  Club  a  mirror  of  its  own  aspirations.  A 
fatal  alliance  sprang  up  between  the  municipality  and 
the  club.  The  faubourgs  armed  themselves.  The  King 
also  had  collected  a  strong  body-guard.  Robespierre, 
in  February,  demanded  the  removal  of  the  Haute  Cour 
from  Orleans  to  Paris.  The  absent  were  suspected. 
I  The  Jacobins  opposed  war  for  fear  a  successful  general 
might  make  terms  with  the  monarchy.  The  Girondists, 
being  less  afraid  of  such  a  possible  compromise, 
clamoured  for  war.  On  April  20,  1792,  the  King  was 
forced  to  give  his  consent  to  a  declaration  of  war  against 


i792]  AMONG  THE  JACOBINS  157 

Austria.  Envoys  from  the  French  government,  who 
were  sent  to  solicit  the  good-will  of  Prussia,  England, 
Spain,  and  Sardinia,  were  repulsed  or  coldly  received. 
The  opening  of  the  campaign  against  the  Austrian 
dominions  in  Belgium  met  with  a  lamentable  check. 
A  French  division,  panic-struck  even  before  it  saw  the 
enemy,  rushed  back  into  Lille  and  murdered  its  general, 
Dillon,  on  April  29.  This  is  the  disaster  of  which  Words- 
worth writes  to  Mathews  on  May  17. 

How  the  course  of  public  affairs  affected  Frenchmen 
of  rank,  who,  though  loyal  to  the  monarchy,  were  still 
in  France,  and  indeed  in  the  national  army,  but  plotting 
reaction,  is  nowhere  more  graphically  described  than  in 
"  The  Prelude  ":* 

A  band  of  military  Officers, 
Then  stationed  in  the  city,  were  the  chief 
Of  my  associates :  some  of  these  wore  sword6 
That  had  been  seasoned  in  the  wars,  and  all 
Were  men  well-born ;  the  chivalry  of  France. 
In  age  and  temper  differing,  they  had  yet 
One  spirit  ruling  in  each  heart;  alike 
(Save  only  one,  hereafter  to  be  named) 
Were  bent  upon  undoing  what  was  done. 

Such  a  state  of  mind  in  the  army  as  is  here  depicted 
goes  far  to  explain  and  to  justify  the  suspicions  of 
Robespierre  and  Marat,  who  were  unwilling  to  give 
military  men,  at  a  distance  from  Paris,  an  opportunity 
to  distinguish  themselves  in  war.  If  successful,  they 
might  rehabilitate  the  monarchy.  Defeated,  they  might 
betray  their  country  to  the  foreign  foe.  After  the  King's 
attempt  to  flee  in  June,  1791,  officers  had  been  obliged 
to  swear  that  they  would  obey  the  National  Assembly. 
The  colonel  of  the  Bassigny  regiment,  whichjhad  become 
the  32nd  Infantry,  refusing  to  sign  the  oath,  had  been 
driven  out  of  Tours,  where  he  was  then  stationed,  and 
the  fact,  or  one  like  it,  is  alluded  to  in  "  The  Prelude," 
IX.  181.  A  detachment  of  four  companies  was  trans- 
ferred in  August  of  that  year  from  Tours  to  ^Blois. 
It  is  the  officers  of  this  detachment  that  Wordsworth 

*   Book  IX.,  line  125.     The  whole  passage,  down  to  line  197,  should  be 
carefully  read. 


1 58  IN  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE     [chap,  vn 

refers  to.  They  admitted  him  to  their  society  because 
he  was  an  Englishman,  and  tolerated  his  criticisms 
because,  being  an  Englishman,  he  was  un  original* 

An  Englishman, 
Born  in  a  land  whose  very  name  appeared 
To  license  some  unruliness  of  mind  ; 
A  stranger,  with  youth's  further  privilege, 
And  the  indulgence  that  a  half-learnt  speech 
Wins  from  the  courteous;   I,  who  had  been  else 
Shunned  and  not  tolerated,  freely  lived 
With  these  defenders  of  the  Crown,  and  talked, 
And  heard  their  notions ;  nor  did  they  disdain 
The  wish  to  bring  me  over  to  their  cause. 

But  he  was  invulnerable  to  their  arguments.  He  had 
already  become  grounded  in  Revolutionary  doctrine. 
The  "  master-pamphlets  of  the  day  "  had  convinced  his 
reason.  And  a  deeper  source  of  strength,  which  made 
their  talk  seem  crude  and  vain,  was  his  natural  in- 
difference, bred  in  him  from  boyhood,  to  the  social  dis- 
tinctions which  meant  so  much  to  them.  He  was 
romantic,  and  would  gladly  have  stopped  his  ears  to 
politics  and  listened  only  to  tales  of  ancient  heroes  or 
to  the  fall  of  waters  and  the  madrigals  of  birds.  Ex- 
tremists of  either  side  found  him  absent-minded  when 
they  tried  to  engage  him.  The  narrow  rationalism  of 
one  party  and  the  cruel  bigotry  of  the  other,  both  found 
him  smiling  still  at  some  happy  thought  suggested  by 
stories  or  scenes  of  the  past.  Yet,  when  roused  to  con- 
troversy, he  proved  to  be  instinctively  a  democrat. 
The  royalist  officers  sought  to  persuade  him  that  their 
cause  was  justrf 

But  though  untaught  by  thinking  or  by  books 
To  reason  well  of  polity  or  law, 
And  nice  distinctions,  then  on  every  tongue, 
Of  natural  rights  and  civil ;  and  to  acts 
Of  nations  and  their  passing  interests, 
(If  with  unworldly  ends  and  aims  compared) 
Almost  indifferent,  even  the  historian's  tale 
Prizing  but  little  otherwise  than  I  prized 
Tales  of  the  poets,  as  it  made  the  heart 

*  "  Prelude,"  IX.  188-197.  f  Ibid»  I98- 


i792]  A  THOROUGH  CONVERT  159 

Beat  high,  and  filled  the  fancy  with  fair  forms, 
Old  heroes,  and  their  sufferings  and  their  deeds ; 
Yet  in  the  regal  sceptre,  and  the  pomp 
Of  orders  and  degrees,  I  nothing  found 
Then,  or  had  ever,  even  in  crudest  youth. 
That  dazzled  me,  but  rather  what  I  mourned 
And  ill  could  brook,  beholding  that  the  best 
Ruled  not,  and  feeling  that  they  ought  to  rule. 
For,  born  in  a  poor  district,  and  which  yet 
Retaineth  more  of  ancient  homeliness, 
Than  any  other  nook  of  English  ground, 
It  was  my  fortune  scarcely  to  have  seen, 
Through  the  whole  tenour  of  my  schoolday  time, 
The  face  of  one,  who,  whether  boy  or  man, 
Was  vested  with  attention  or  respect 
Through  claims  of  wealth  or  blood ;  nor  was  it  least 
Of  many  benefits,  in  later  years 
Derived  from  academic  institutes 
And  rules,  that  they  held  something  up  to  view 
Of  a  Republic,  where  all  stood  thus  far 
Upon  equal  ground;  that  we  were  brothers  all 
In  honour,  as  in  one  community, 
Scholars  and  gentlemen;  where,  furthermore, 
Distinction  open  lay  to  all  that  came, 
And  wealth  and  titles  were  in  less  esteem 
Than  talents,  worth,  and  prosperous  industry. 
Add  unto  this,  subservience  from  the  first 
To  presences  of  God's  mysterious  power 
Made  manifest  in  Nature's  sovereignty, 
And  fellowship  with  venerable  books, 
To  sanction  the  proud  workings  of  the  soul, 
And  mountain  liberty.     It  could  not  be 
But  that  one  tutored  thus  should  look  with  awe 
Upon  the  faculties  of  man,  receive 
Gladly  the  highest  promises,  and  hail, 
As  best,  the  government  of  equal  rights 
And  individual  worth.     And  hence,  O  Friend  ! 
If  at  the  first  great  outbreak  I  rejoiced 
Less  than  might  well  befit  my  youth,  the  cause 
In  part  lay  here,  that  unto  me  the  event6 
Seemed  nothing  out  of  nature's  certain  course, 
A  gift  that  was  come  rather  late  than  soon. 
No  wonder,  then,  if  advocates  like  these, 
Inflamed  by  passion,  blind  with  prejudice, 
And  stung  with  injury,  at  this  riper  day, 
Were  impotent  to  make  my  hopes  put  on 
The  shape  of  theirs,  my  understanding  bend 
In  honour  to  their  honour:  zeal,  which  yet 


160  IN  REVOLUTIONARY  FRANCE     [chap,  vn 

Had  slumbered,  now  in  opposition  burst 
Forth  like  a  Polar  summer;  every  word 
They  uttered  was  a  dart,  by  counterwind6 
Blown  back  upon  themselves;  their  reason  seemed 
Confusion-stricken  by  a  higher  power 
Than  human  understanding,  their  discourse 
Maimed,  spiritless;  and,  in  their  weakness  6trong, 
I  triumphed. 

Politics  apart,  the  human  tragedy  of  the  war  affected 
him  profoundly.  He  saw  the  roads  filled  with  the 
bravest  youth  of  France  "  and  all  the  promptest  of  her 
spirits,"  under  arms  and  hastening  to  the  north.  He 
saw  the  struggle  in  many  a  family  between  love  and 
patriotism.  Here  and  there  a  face  in  the  passing  files 
of  eager  young  men  touched  him  with  a  sense  of  brother- 
x  /hood.  The  martial  music,  the  banners,  quickened  his 
blood.  These  moving  spectacles  made  his  heart  beat 
high,  and  seemed* 

Arguments  sent  from  Heaven  to  prove  the  cause 
Good,  pure,  which  no  one  could  stand  up  against, 
Who  was  not  lost,  abandoned,  selfish,  proud, 
Mean,  miserable,  wilfully  depraved, 
Hater  perverse  of  equity  and  truth. 

*  "  Prelude,"  IX.  283. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

BEAUPUY  AND  BLOIS 

One  of  the  oppressive  laws  of  the  old  regime  had  been 
that  no  soldier,  however  brave,  however  accomplished, 
could  rise  above  the  ranks  unless  he  were  of  noble  blood.' 
Among  the  officers  stationed  at  Blois,  there  was  only  one 
who  viewed  the  patriotic  rising  with  the  same  generous 
feelings  as  the  young  foreigner.*  This  was  a  captain 
in  the  32nd  Regiment,  Michel-Armand  Bacharetie 
Beaupuy.  He  was  thirty-six  years  old,  and  had  been 
in  the  army  ever  since  his  sixteenth  year.  He  was  born 
at  Mussidan,  about  fifty  miles  north-east  of  Bordeaux, 
July  14,  1755,  of  an  ancient  noble  family.  His  mother 
was  a  descendant,  in  the  sixth  generation,  from  the 
great  essayist  Montaigne.  His  three  elder  brothers 
were  officers  in  the  old  army,  from  which  two  of  them 
at  least  retired  when  the  Revolution  began.  iThey  were 
all  zealous  partisans  of  liberty, and  wielded  great  influence 
in  their  native  region,  being  instrumental  in  choosing 
and  instructing  its  delegates  to  the  Constituent  As- 
sembly. His  younger  brother  was  a  priest,  but  favoured 
the  Revolution.  At  the  outbreak  of  the  troubles  this 
young  ecclesiastic  gave  up  an  easy  post,  which  had 
never  been  congenial,  as  Canon  of  Aries,  and  became 
curt  of  his  native  parish.  He  joyfully  swore  allegiance 
to  the  constitution  in  1791.  Their  mother  had  brought 
up  these  five  sons  on  the  literature  and  philosophy  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  Their  home  was  a  centre  of 
the  new  culture. 

*  According  to  MM.  Bussidre  and  Legouis  ("  Le  General  Michel  Beau- 
puy "),  there  was  one  officer  in  the  regiment — Vimieux — risen  from  the 
ranks,  who  agreed  with  Beaupuy. 

I.  161  II 


162  BEAUPUY  AND  BLOIS  [chap,  vm 

Michel,  the  captain  at  Blois  had  served  in  many  parts 
of  France,  had  been  promoted  slowly,  had  read  and 
studied  much,  and  had  lately,  while  on  furlough,  been 
the  chief  figure  in  the  politics  of  Mussidan.  His  Revolu- 
tionary principles  were  grounded  on  a  thorough  exami- 
nation of  the  social  philosophy  which  lay  behind  the 
movement.  He  was  a  democrat  in  heart  also.  He 
loved  the  poor,  and  lived  and  laboured  for  their  sake. 
The  annals  of  the  Revolution  present  no  purer  spirit, 
none  more  unselfish,  gallant,  genial,  and  hopeful. 
Scorned  by  his  brother  officers,  he  rose  above  them  by 
his  patient  dignity.  He  could  afford  to  await  the  verdict 
of  time,  serenely  confident  as  he  was  in  the  justice  of  his 
!  cause.  No  other  man  save  Coleridge  had  so  great  an 
influence  upon  Wordsworth  as  this  sweet  and  devoted 
patriot.  Of  him,  no  doubt,  the  poet  thought,  no  matter  of 
whom  besides,  when  he  wrote  "  The  Character  of  the 
Happy  Warrior.'*  With  his  more  systematic  philosophy, 
tempered  in  the  fire  of  persecution,  Beaupuy  came  to 
Wordsworth's  support.  He  turned  the  young  man's 
vague  idealism  into  firm  principle.  And  at  last  the 
love  of  humanity,  which  had  not  yet  found  equal  place 
in  the  poet's  heart  with  love  of  nature,  was  raised  to 
the  double  throne.  He  depicts  Beaupuy,  in  "  The 
Prelude,"  with  many  distinct  and  fine  touches:* 

Among  that  band  of  Officers  was  one, 
Already  hinted  at,  of  other  mould — 
A  patriot,  thence  rejected  by  the  rest, 
And  with  an  oriental  loathing  spurned, 
As  of  a  different  caste.     A  meeker  man 
Than  this  lived  never,  nor  a  more  benign, 
Meek  though  enthusiastic.     Injuries 
Made  him  more  gracious,  and  his  nature  then 
Did  breathe  its  sweetness  out  most  sensibly, 
As  aromatic  flowers  on  Alpine  turf, 

When  foot  hath  crushed  them.     He  through  the  events 
Of  that  great  change  wandered  in  perfect  faith, 
As  through  a  book,  an  old  romance,  or  tale 
Of  Fairy,  or  some  dream  of  actions  wrought 
Behind  the  summer  clouds.     By  birth  he  ranked 
With  the  most  noble,  but  unto  the  poor 

*   "  Prelude,"  IX.  288. 


i792]  A  FRENCH  PATRIOT  163 

Among  mankind  he  was  in  service  bound, 
As  by  some  tie  invisible,  oaths  professed 
To  a  religious  order.     Man  he  loved 
As  man;  and,  to  the  mean  and  the  obscure, 
And  all  the  homely  in  their  homely  works. 
Transferred  a  courtesy  which  had  no  air 
Of  condescension ;  but  did  rather  seem 
A  passion  and  a  gallantry,  like  that 
Which  he,  a  soldier,  in  his  idler  day 
Had  paid  to  woman:  somewhat  vain  he  was, 
Or  seemed  so,  yet  it  was  not  vanity, 
But  fondness,  and  a  kind  of  radiant  joy 
Diffused  around  him,  while  he  was  intent 
On  works  of  love  or  freedom,  or  revolved 
Complacently  the  progress  of  a  cause, 
Whereof  he  was  a  part :  yet  this  was  meek 
And  placid,  and  took  nothing  from  the  man 
That  was  delightful. 

Beaupuy  was  no  leveller.  He  did  not  confound 
distinctions.  He  was  not  blind  to  fact.  Although 
he  evidently  was  a  student  of  Jean-Jacques,  he  knew 
from  experience  that  some  men  are  set  apart  for  rule 
and  honour  by  their  virtues  and  knowledge.  He  loved 
the  poor  and  humble,  but,  not  being  an  intolerant 
theorist,  he  admitted  that  the  ignorance  of  the  multi- 
tude who  must  earn  their  bread  by  manual  labour  de- 
barred them  from  the  immediate  exercise  of  high 
political  power.* 

Oft  in  solitude 
With  him  did  I  discourse  about  the  end 
Of  civil  government,  and  its  wisest  forms; 
Of  ancient  loyalty,  and  chartered  rights. 
Custom  and  habit,  novelty  and  change; 
Of  self-respect,  and  virtue  in  the  few 
For  patrimonial  honour  set  apart, 
And  ignorance  in  the  labouring  multitude. 

Still,  at  times,  giving  rein  to  pity  and  scorn,  and 
employing  the  language  of  the  day,  which  we  find  at 
its  best  in  the  American  Declaration  of  Independence, 
and  in  patriotic  songs,  both  French  and  American,  they 
indulged  themselves  in  weaker  and  less  edifying  talk.f 

*  "  Prelude,"  IX.  321.  t  Ibid.,  339. 


1 64  BEAUPUY  AND  BLOIS  [chap,  vm 

But  though  not  deaf,  nor  obstinate  to  find 
Error  without  excuse  upon  the  side 
Of  them  who  strove  against  us,  more  delight 
We  took,  and  let  this  freely  be  confessed, 
In  painting  to  ourselves  the  miseries 
Of  royal  courts,  and  that  voluptuous  life 
Unfeeling,  where  the  man  who  is  of  soul 
The  meanest  thrives  the  most;  where  dignity, 
True  personal  dignity,  abideth  not; 
A  light,  a  cruel,  and  vain  world  cut  off 
From  the  natural  inlets  of  just  sentiment, 
From  lowly  sympathy  and  chastening  truth: 
Where  good  and  evil  interchange  their  names, 
And  thirst  for  bloody  spoils  abroad  is  paired 
With  vice  at  home. 

Beaupuy  was  Wordsworth's  instructor  in  branches 
of  study  for  which  he  had  until  then  shown  no  aptitude. 
He  awakened  new  interests,  gave  him  social  conscious- 
ness, clothed  for  him  in  garments  of  majestic  association 
the  history  of  mankind.  Henceforth  the  poet  could  no 
longer  regard  the  chronicles  of  nations  as  a  mere  quarry 
for  romantic  incidents.  History,  he  now  saw,  was 
organic.  Heroism  was  but  the  eminent  outcrop  of 
deep  popular  virtues  and  aspirations.  Creeds  and 
sects  took  their  place  with  national  customs,  as  growths 
unconsciously  implanted  and  irresistibly  evolved  But 
in  all  this  they  saw  the  workings  of  a  destiny,  not  blind 
and  aimless,  but  moving  towards  a  glorious  end.* 

We  summoned  up  the  honourable  deeds 
Of  ancient  Story, 

and,  finally,  beheld 
A  living  confirmation  of  the  whole 
Before  us,  in  a  people  from  the  depth 
Of  shameful  imbecility  uprisen, 
Fresh  as  the  morning  star.     Elate  we  looked 
Upon  their  virtues;  saw,  in  rudest  men, 
Self-sacrifice  the  firmest;  generous  love, 
And  continence  of  mind,  and  sense  of  right, 
Uppermost  in  the  midst  of  fiercest  strife. 

The  world  has  never  since  offered  to  generous  youth 
so  wide  a  prospect.      Never  again  has  the  future  been 

*  "  Prelude,"  IX.  364. 


i792l  INSTRUCTOR  IN  DEMOCRACY  165 

so  flooded  with  light,  never  have  distant  mountains  of 
promise  beckoned  with  such  strong  allurement.  From 
height  to  height  the  promise  flashed.  It  explained 
the  past,  with  all  its  sorrow,  now  so  full  of  meaning. 
It  made  any  sacrifice  endurable  for  the  sake  of  a  sure 
result.  The  pathway  ahead  lay  golden  in  the  sunshine. 
Not  since  the  earliest  days  of  Christianity  had  groups  of 
the  purest  and  strongest  men  felt  so  exalted,  and  whole 
communities  been  so  uplifted.  Even  solitary  dreamers 
in  distant  places  the  thrill  of  enthusiasm  stirred.  How 
much  more,  then,  were  they  moved  who  lived  in  daily 
contact  with  actors  in  the  mighty  drama  !* 

He  compares  Beaupuy  with  Dion,  the  pupil  of  Plato, 
who  headed  an  expedition  under  philosophic  patronage 
against  the  tyrant  of  Syracuse.  But  there  is  no  reason 
to  think  that  he  had  in  mind  a  close  parallel  between 
Beaupuy  and  the  unfortunate  Greek  hero  when,  in 
1 814,  he  wrote  his  poem  "  Dion,"  for  even  at  that  time, 
in  the  depths  of  his  political  and  moral  reaction  against 
the  Revolution,  he  could  never  have  intended  its  last 
and  most  significant  lines  to  apply  adversely  to  the 
friend  of  his  youth  : 

Him  only  pleasure  leads,  and  peace  attends, 
Him,  only  him,  a  shield  of  Jove  defends, 
Whose  means  are  fair  and  spotless  as  his  ends. 

Poetry,  unmindful  of  moral  purposes  and  public 
welfare,  ever  and  anon  rebelled  against  his  new  interests. 
As  they  walked  side  by  side  through  the  forest  along 
the  Loire,  Wordsworth  wearied  of  those  "  heart-bracing 
colloquies,"  and  in  spite  of  his  real  fervour— and  that 
less  genuine  excitement  worked  up  within  himself,  as 
he  tells  us  he  peopled  the  mysterious  glades  of  those 
royal  demesnes  with  the  heroines  of  Ariosto  and  Tasso, 
saw  Angelica  upon  her  palfrey,  and  Erminia  the  fair 
fugitive,  rather  than  the  goddess  Liberty.  He  sinned 
in  the  eyes  of  his  stern  preceptor  by  sighing  for  the 
hushed  matin-bell,  the  extinguished  taper,  and  the 
displaced  cross,  when  they  gazed  at  the  ruins  of  a  con- 

*   "  Prelude,"  IX.  jyu. 


1 66  BEAUPUY  AND  BLOIS  [chap,  vm 

vent;  he  persisted  in  romancing  about  pleasure-loving 
kings  and  their  mistresses,  when  they  caught  sight  of 
ancient  castles  rising  above  the  trees.  Thus  imagina- 
tion, he  tells  us,  often  mitigated  the  force  of  civic 
prejudice,  the  bigotry  of  a  youthful  patriot's  mind. 
Well  would  it  have  been  for  the  over-wrought  delegates 
in  Paris  if  they  could  have  escaped  now  and  then  from 
the  fever  and  glare  of  the  distracted  city  and  let  their 
imaginations  rest,  even  as  an  interlude,  upon  quieter 
scenes ;  though  it  is  to  be  doubted  whether  the  sight  of 
Chambord,  with  its  tale  of  royal  vice  and  extravagance, 
would  have  calmed  them.  But  to  Wordsworth,  who 
had  not  to  pay  for  ancient  wrongs,  those  beautiful  old 
palaces  gave  "  many  gleams  of  chivalrous  delight." 
"  Yet  not  the  less,"  he  declares,  with  a  return  to  aus- 
terity, "  not  the  less,"* 

Hatred  of  absolute  rule,  where  will  of  one 
Is  law  for  all,  and  of  that  barren  pride 
In  them  who,  by  immunities  unjust, 
Between  the  sovereign  and  the  people  stand, 
His  helper  and  not  theirs,  laid  stronger  hold 
Daily  upon  me,  mixed  with  pity  too 
And  love ;  for  where  hope  is,  there  love  will  be 
For  the  abject  multitude. 

The  one  unmistakable  note  in  the  pompous  harmonies 
and  crashing  discords  of  the  Revolution  was  hope.  He 
alone  who  has  hope,  who  believes  in  human  perfect- 
ibility, will  have  the  motive  and  the  courage  to  love 
mankind  in  spite  of  all  its  blemishes.  The  essence  of 
Toryism  is  despair  of  human  nature.  The  essence  of 
the  Revolutionary  or  progressive  spirit  is  trust  in 
human  nature.  The  last  sentence  of  the  lines  just 
quoted  is  an  epitome  of  that  philosophy  which  animated 
France  and  which  made  the  Revolution  a  religious 
movement.  For  whether  in  good  or  in  evil,  it  was 
religious.  Its  good  sprang  from  unselfish  devotion  to 
universal  aims,  to  impersonal  ideals.  Its  evil  came 
rarely  from  self-seeking  or  littleness,  but  almost  wholly 
from  fanatical  attachment  to  general  principles.     Robe- 

*   "  Prelude,"  IX.  501. 


1792]         THE  ESSENCE  OF  REVOLUTION  i6; 

spierre  was  as  religious  as  Mahomet.  In  Beaupuy  an 
original  sweetness  of  disposition  kept  his  love  for  the 
poor  from  turning  into  hate  for  their  oppressors.  He 
was  earnest  in  his  search  for  a  remedy,  but  not  vindic- 
tive. He  had  no  fear  of  failure,  and  could  therefore  , 
exercise  some  patience.  He  felt  sure  that  most  men 
were  with  him  and  that  their  united  efforts  must  succeed. 
Examples  of  misery  were  not  wanting,  and  Beaupuy  used 
them  as  texts  for  discourses  which  established  Words- 
worth in  his  republican  faith.* 

When  we  chanced 
One  day  to  meet  a  hunger-bitten  girl, 
Who  crept  along  fitting  her  languid  gait 
Into  a  heifer's  motion,  by  a  cord 
Tied  to  her  arm,  and  picking  thus  from  the  lane 
Its  sustenance,  while  the  girl  with  pallid  hands 
Was  busv  knitting  in  a  heartless  mood 
Of  solitude,  and  at  the  sight  my  friend 
In  agitation  said,  "  Tis  against  that 
That  we  are  righting,"  I  with  him  believed 
That  a  benignant  spirit  was  abroad 
Which  might  not  be  withstood,  that  poverty 
Abject  as  this  would  in  a  little  time 
Be  found  no  more,  that  we  should  see  the  earth 
Unthwarted  in  her  wish  to  recompense 
The  meek,  the  lowly,  patient  child  of  toil, 
All  institutes  for  ever  blotted  out 
That  legalized  exclusion,  empty  pomp 
Abolished,  sensual  state  and  cruel  power, 
Whether  by  edict  of  the  one  or  few ; 
And  finally,  as  sum  and  crown  of  all, 
Should  see  the  people  having  a  strong  hand 
In  framing  their  own  laws;  whence  better  days 
To  all  mankind. 

It  was  Beaupuy,  also,  who  told  Wordsworth  the  story 
of  Vaudracour  and  Julia,  as  an  instance  of  the  bigotry 
of  birth  that  France  was  weary  of.     At  least,  so  we  read 

*  "  Prelude,"  IX.  509.  Curiously  enough,  Joseph  Jekyll,  seventeen 
years  before,  had  remarked  the  same  evidence  of  poverty  in  the  rountiy 
about  Blois.  He  says:  "  The  peasants  of  this  part  of  France  are  miserably 
poor.  The  girls  who  herd  the  cows  are  always  at  work  with  their  distaffs, 
and  the  cap  is  always  clean,  and  perhaps  laced,  while  the  feel  are  without 
shoes  and  stockings."  The  poor,  he  declares,  lived  upon  bread  and  water 
from  Monday  till  Sunday,  and  bread  was  very  dear. 


168  BEAUPUY  AND  BLOIS  [chap.viii 

in  "  The  Prelude."  Many  years  afterwards,  Words- 
worth said  to  a  friend  who  was  collecting  notes  on  his 
poems,  Miss  Isabella  Fenwick,  that  "  Vaudracour  and 
Julia  "  was  "  faithfully  narrated,  though  with  the 
omission  of  many  pathetic  circumstances,  from  the 
mouth  of  a  French  lady,  who  had  been  an  eye-and-ear 
witness  of  all  that  was  done  and  said."  And  he  added, 
using  a  name  which  does  not  occur  in  the  poem :  "  Many 
long  years  after,  I  was  told  that  Dupligne  was  then  a 
monk  in  the  Convent  of  La  Trappe."  The  poem  was 
composed  not  later  than  1804  as  an  episode  in  "  The 
Prelude."  It  was,  however,  on  account  of  its  length, 
published  separately  in  1820,  with  the  remark:  "  The 
facts  are  true;  no  invention  as  to  these  has  been  exer- 
cised, as  none  was  needed." 

In  the  same  registers  at  Blois  in  which  I  found  the 
motion  to  admit  two  Englishmen  into  the  Society  of  the 
Friends  of  the  Constitution,  on  February  3,  1792,  I  have 
discovered  what  appear  to  be  traces  of  Beaupuy's 
activity.  On  January  22  of  the  same  year,  it  is  recorded 
that  "  one  of  our  brothers  of  the  32nd  Regiment,  an 
officer,  read  a  very  eloquent  discourse  on  political  dis- 
trust, showing  how  dangerous  it  was  when  it  exceeded 
the  limits  of  that  proper  watchfulness  necessary  in  all 
good  citizens."  The  officer's  name  is  almost  illegible, 
but  seems  to  be  Beaupuy  or  Beaupuis.  On  January  29 
he  read  his  speech  a  second  time,  and  was  freshly  ap- 
plauded. An  officer  of  the  same  regiment,  sometimes 
mentioned  as  the  32nd,  and  sometimes  under  its  old 
name  Bassigny,  is  referred  to  several  times  in  the  next 
three  or  four  months,  but  not  by  name.  The  club 
appears  to  have  become  attached  particularly  to  Brissot 
and  his  faction  in  Paris. 

It  is  almost  necessary  to  believe  that  Wordsworth,  a 
lonely  young  man,  must  have  haunted  the  daily  meet- 
ings of  the  Revolutionary  club.  They  provided  enter- 
tainment and  excitement  in  a  town  otherwise  dull — too 
large  for  rural  beauty,  too  busy  with  petty  retail  trade  to 
invite  a  genial  expansion  of  the  soul,  a  town  sunk  in  a 
maddening  monotony  of  small  comforts.     But  into  this 


i792]  NIGHTLY  SESSIONS  169 

unpromising  garden  a  seed  had  fallen  from  the  wings  of 
Freedom.  A  vigorous  plant  had  sprung  up,  exotic, 
and  yet  so  well  adapted  to  the  soil  as  to  draw  to  itself 
the  elements  of  life  slumbering  round  about.  There 
was  now  one  important  hour  of  day  and  one  interesting 
place.  A  spirited  young  man  of  twenty- two,  unless 
restrained  by  scruples  or  prejudices,  would  naturally 
avail  himself  of  the  opportunity  thus  offered.  Curiosity 
would  induce  him  to  visit  the  club ;  sympathy  with  its 
objects  might  easily  make  him  wish  to  join  it.  And 
even  if  for  no  other  reason  than  to  perfect  himself  in  the 
French  language,  he  would  be  attracted  to  these  daily 
meetings. 

Fancy  would  fain  reconstruct  the  scene :  the  vaulted 
church,  destitute  of  altar,  shrine,  and  image,  its  dark- 
ness rendered  visible  with  guttering  candles,  which  cast 
"  a  little  glooming  light,  much  like  a  shade  ";  the  plat- 
form draped  in  red,  white,  and  blue;  Bishop  Gregoire 
in  the  choir,  wearing  his  violet  episcopal  vestments  to 
indicate  that,  though  a  Revolutionist,  he  was  a  Church- 
man still;  one  of  those  painstaking  secretaries  at  his 
side  whose  handwriting  we  have  been  deciphering; 
"  nos  freres,"  both  civil  and  military,  sitting  below,  and 
"  nos  soeurs  "  in  the  gallery,  waving  each  one  a  copy  of 
the  new  patriotic  hymn.  Captain  Michel  Beaupuy, 
divested  of  the  haughty  air  belonging  to  his  birth  and 
his  old  training,  and  clad  in  the  new  uniform  of  a 
republican  regiment,  ascends  the  rostrum  and  begins 
an  impassioned  speech.  And  at  the  edge  of  the  crowd, 
that  tall  English  youth,  hanging  on  his  words  and 
kindling  with  the  double  enthusiasm  of  friendship  and 
zeal  for  a  great  cause,  is  William  Wordsworth  ! 

Wordsworth  tells  us,  in  the  autobiographical  memo- 
randa, that  he  was  still  at  Blois  when  the  King  was 
dethroned — August  10,  1792.  WTe  cannot  doubt  that, 
at  the  time,  he  rejoiced  in  this  event,  in  spite  of  the 
massacre  of  the  Swiss  Guards  which  accompanied  it. 
The  Duke  of  Brunswick  had,  on  July  26,  issued  an 
insolent  mamiesto,  declaring  that  he  was  coming,  in  the 
name  of  the  kings  of  Europe,  to  restore  Louis  XVI.  to 


170  BEAUPUY  AND  BLOIS  [chap,  vm 

authority.  Maddened  by  this  declaration,  and  goaded 
by  Danton,  Marat,  and  Robespierre,  who  saw  their 
opportunity  to  establish  a  republic,  the  people  of  Paris, 
together  with  large  delegations  from  all  parts  of  the 
cbuntry,  invaded  the  Tuileries,  slaughtered  two  thou- 
sand of  the  King's  defenders,  and  drove  him  to  take 
refuge  in  the  hall  of  the  Legislative  Assembly,  whence 
he  was  sent  to  prison.  On  August  25  news  reached 
Paris  that  the  Prussians  had  entered  Longwy.  Next 
came  reports  that  Verdun  had  fallen,  that  it  had  been 
treacherously  surrendered,  that  the  enemy  were  within 
one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  of  Paris.  At  once  the  un- 
scrupulous fanatics  of  the  Jacobin  Club  seized  control 
of  the  city  government  and  sent  a  band  of  hired  assassins 
to  the  prisons.  In  five  days,  from  the  2nd  to  the 
6th  of  September,  more  than  nine  hundred  helpless 
men,  women,  and  children,  were  butchered.  The  mad- 
ness spread  to  Versailles,  Rheims,  Meaux,  Lyons,  and 
Orleans,  where  Wordsworth  was  at  the  time,  as  he  tells 
us  in  the  autobiographical  memoranda. 

Beaupuy  had  already,  before  the  beginning  of  August, 
accompanied  his  regiment  into  Lower  Alsace.  The 
friends  had  parted,  never  to  meet  again.  Wordsworth, 
years  afterwards,  heard  and  believed  a  false  report  of 
Beaupuy's  death  in  the  war  of  the  Vendee,  and  wrote, 
in  "  The  Prelude":* 

He  perished  fighting,  in  supreme  command, 
Upon  the  borders  of  the  unhappy  Loire, 
For  liberty,  against  deluded  men, 
His  fellow-countrymen;  and  yet  most  blessed 
In  this,  that  he  the  fate  of  later  times 
Lived  not  to  see,  nor  what  we  now  behold, 
Who  have  as  ardent  hearts  as  he  had  then. 

It  is  true  that  Beaupuy  was  spared  the  sight  of 
France  ruled  by  an  emperor,  which  is  what  Wordsworth 
saw  with  horror  in  1 804  when  he  wrote  these  lines.  But 
he  did  not  die  fighting  against  the  Vendean  Royalists. 
The  report  probably  originated  in  the  fact  that  he  was 
severely  wounded    at   the  battle  of  Chateau-Gonthier, 

*   Book  IX.,  line  424. 


1792]  A  CAREER  OF  GLORY  171 

October  27,  1793,  when  commanding  the  advance-guard 
of  the  Army  of  the  West.  He  had  meanwhile  shared 
the  glory  and  the  persecutions  of  the  Army  of  Mayence, 
victorious  on  the  Rhine,  calumniated  on  the  Seine.  His 
advancement  had  been  rapid.  Of  mature  age,  though 
retaining  the  cheerfulness  and  vivacity  of  youth,  un- 
equalled for  daring,  noted  even  in  the  republican  army 
as  a  man  of  strong  convictions,  he  had  survived  the 
jealousy  of  the  Jacobins,  in  spite  of  his  noble  birth  and 
eminent  achievements.  Within  a  year  after  Words- 
worth left  France,  his  soldier  hero  was  a  general  of 
division.  His  life  was  too  busy  and  communications 
were  too  much  interrupted  to  admit  of  correspondence 
between  the  friends,  and  Wordsworth  never  knew  of 
his  distinguished  career  as  chief  of  staff  of  the  Army 
of  the  West  and  general  in  the  Army  of  the  Rhine  and 
Moselle.  He  was  killed  in  battle,  October  19,  1797, 
and  buried  near  Neuf-Brisach,  east  of  Colmar.  The 
army,  which  knew  his  spirit,  built  his  tomb.  It  stands 
at  a  cross-roads  in  the  open  country,  a  far-seen  monu- 
ment. In  a  commemorative  address  before  the  legis- 
lative body,  General  Duhesme,  "  the  Nestor  and  the 
Achilles  of  our  army,"  pronounced  his  eulogy.  His 
biographers,  MM.  Bussiere  and  Legouis,  sum  up  his 
highest  praise  as  follows : 

His  convictions,  accepted  in  his  ripe  manhood,  after 
having  been  prepared  by  the  liberal  spirit  of  his  family, 
nourished  with  philosophical  literature,  and  purified  by 
the  scorn  of  the  officers  of  the  Bassigny  regiment,  were 
serious  and  firm.  From  the  outset,  they  gave  him 
strong  moral  authority  over  the  people  about  him. 
They  worked  irresistibly  upon  the  young  but  already 
robust  mind  of  Wordsworth.  They  made  a  deep  im- 
pression on  the  generals  who  came  near  him  and  on  the 
soldiers  who  were  placed  under  his  orders.  They  won 
the  esteem  of  enemies  abroad  and  at  home,  for  in  that 
time  of  suspicion  and  calumny  there  is  not  a  trace  of  a 
single  word  derogatory  to  him." 

From  reading  his  journal,  it  is  apparent  that  he  was 
impulsive    and     sincere,    self-confident    but    competent. 


172  BEAUPUY  AND  BLOIS  [chap,  vm 

After  a  scene  that  reminds  one  of  some  brave  passage 
in  the  "  Iliad,"  in  which  he  snatches  a  sword  from  a 
Prussian  officer  and  personally  causes  the  retreat  of 
two  battalions  of  the  enemy,  he  concludes:  "  This  affair 

I  proves  the  superiority  true  Republicans  will  always  have 
over  the  satellites  of  despots  !"  He  never  lost  an  op- 
portunity to  sow  the  good  seed.  At  parleys  with  hostile 
outposts,  during  negotiations  with  German  officers,  in 
conversations  with  prisoners,  he  was  careful  to  let  fall 
a  word  in  season,  and  has  recorded  the  occasions.  "  I 
have,"  he  writes,  "  never  neglected  these  chances.  I 
have  seriously  performed  the  oath  of  my  apostleship 
whenever  possible.  I  have  always  tried  to  tear  away 
the  thick  veil  of  blindness  from  the  eyes  of  these  Ger- 
mans. They  are  not  made  for  freedom,  I  know;  but, 
after  all,  some  grains,  I  hope,  will  sprout." 

Besides  such  preliminan-  work  as  Wordsworth  may 
have  done  on  "  Vaudracour  and  Julia,"  it  is  not  known 

J  that  he  wrote  any  poetry  at  Blois  and  Orleans,  except 
"Descriptive  Sketches."  He  told  Miss  Fenwick  that  much 
the  greater  part  of  this  poem  was  composed  during  his 
walks  on  the  banks  of  the  Loire,  in  the  years  1791 ,  1 792, 
and  the  dates  are  confirmed  in  his  own  handwriting  on 
the  margin  of  a  copy  of  the  edition  of  1 832  which  belongs 
to  Professor  George  Herbert  Palmer,  of  Harvard 
University.  As  we  shall  see,  this  poem  reflects  the 
principles  and  feelings  that  he  describes  in  "  The 
Prelude  "  as  having  been  his  at  that  time.  He  was 
careful,  later,  to  moderate  some  of  its  language.  In  the 
first  edition  the  author's  sympathy  with  the  Revolution- 
ary tendency  is  unmistakable. 

The  fragment  of  another  hitherto  unpublished  letter 
communicated  to  me  by  Mr.  Gordon  Wordsworth  appears 
not  to  have  been  posted  until  a  week  after  it  was  written, 
which  is  not  surprising  when  we  consider  that  this  was  a 
moment  of  terrible  excitement  along  the  Loire.  In  the 
interval  WTordsworth  probably  removed  from  Blois  to 
Orleans,  as  he  tells  us  in  his  autobiographical  memo- 
randa that  he  was  in  the  latter  city  when  the  massa- 
cres of  September  took  place.     The  fragment,  which  is 


1792]  LETTER  TO  ENGLAND  173 

the  conclusion  of  a  letter  directing  his  brother  Richard 
how  to  send  him  a  sum  of  money,  is  as  follows,  and  fixes 
a  date  after  which  he  left  Blois  to  return  to  Orleans : 

"  Blois, 
"  September  3. 
"  Dear  Brother, 

'  .  .  .  I  look  forward  to  the  time  of  seeing  you, 
Wilkinson,  and  my  other  friends,  with  pleasure.  I  am 
very  happy  you  have  got  into  chambers,  as  I  shall 
perhaps  be  obliged  to  stay  a  few  weeks  in  town  about 
my  publication;  you  will,  I  hope,  with  Wilkinson's  per- 
mission, find  me  a  place  for  a  bed.  Give  Wilkinson  my 
best  compts.  I  have  apologies  to  make  for  not  having 
written  to  him,  as  also  to  almost  all  my  other  friends — 
I  rely  on  their  indulgence.  I  shall  be  in  town  during  the 
course  of  the  month  of  October.  Adieu,  Adieu;  you  will 
send  me  the  money  immediately. 

"  W.  Wordsworth." 
[Post  mark :  Blois     Se  10.92 
Addressed  to  Mr.  Wordsworth. 
A.  Parkins,  Esq., 
G.  P.  Off., 
London,  Angleterre. 

Endorsed  by         \        10  Septr.  1792.       \  Letter 

ich.  Wordsworth  f  W.  Wordsworth     f  from  Blois 

to  I  about 

Rd.  Wordsworth.  I  money.] 

It  will  be  observed  that  Wordsworth  did  not  carry 
out  his  intention  of  returning  to  London  in  October. 
It  seems  likely  that  he  spent  part  at  least  of  that  month 
at  Orleans.  In  a  passage  of  "  Descriptive  Sketches," 
beginning  at  line  740  in  the  original  edition,  with  the 
apostrophe  to  the  country  of  the  Loire, 


And  thou  !  fair  favoured  region  !  which  my  soul 
Shall  love,  till  Life  has  broke  her  golden  bowl, 


/ 


he  describes  the  "  October  clouds."  In  footnotes  to 
this  passage  he  mentions  the  peculiar  cry  of  an  insect, 
the  sourd,  which  I  remember  myself  to  have  heard  in 
that  region  and  nowhere  else,  and  also  goes  into  a  long 
description  of  La  Source,  a  limestone  spring  whence 
flow  the  waters  of  the  Loiret,  about  five  miles  south-east 


174  BEAUPUY  AND  BLOIS  [chap.viii 

of  Orleans.  It  is  characteristic  of  him  to  have  sought 
out  this  natural  object  and  described  it  at  length  when 
the  rest  of  the  world  was  infinitely  more  concerned  with 
the  human  passions  that  were  distracting  Orleans  and 
its  neighbourhood.  Nothing  has  ever  given  me  so  deep 
a  sense  of  Wordsworth's  individuality  as  to  have  stood 
beside  the  welling  waters  of  La  Source.  The  park  around 
it  and  the  chateau  near-by  are  full  of  memories  of 
Bolingbroke  and  Voltaire,  but  of  these  traditions  he 
says  not  a  word. 

Certainly  the  exquisite  description  with  which  the 
tenth  book  of  "  The  Prelude  "  opens,  of  the  "  beautiful 
and  silent  day  "  on  which  he  bade  farewell  to  the 
gliding  Loire,  recalls  October  with  its  "  many-coloured 
woods." 

He  must  have  rejoiced  when  the  good  news  came  of 
the  defeat  of  the  Prussians  at  Valmy,  on  September  20. 
Goethe  was  with  the  invaders.  France  had  attracted 
those  two  great  poets  from  neighbouring  lands,  but 
how  differently  !  Goethe,  middle-aged,  rich  in  achieve- 
ments and  honours,  a  pensioner  of  an  old-fashioned 
court,  came  to  observe,  to  criticize,  to  judge,  the  insane 
struggles  of  the  French;  Wordsworth,  little  more  than 
a  boy,  free  of  foot,  open-minded,  thoughtless  of  his  own 
advancement,  and  glowing  with  generous  hopes  for 
mankind — the  English  poet  has  every  advantage  romance 
can  confer.  Goethe,  with  marvellous  directness  and 
vigour,  relates  in  his  "  Campaign  in  France  "  how  he 
travelled  through  scenes  of  rapine  and  slaughter  in  his 
"  light  carriage  "  or  in  the  Duke  of  Weimar's  six-horse 
kitchen-waggon.  He  lets  us  perceive,  perhaps  without 
intending  to  do  so,  the  insolence  and  vanity  with  which 
the  expedition  was  undertaken,  the  cruelty  which 
accompanied  it,  and  the  demoralization  of  the  invaders 
when  they  met  firm  resistance  instead  of  anarchy  and 
weakness.  After  the  fall  of  Verdun  he  tells  us  he 
ordered  maps  to  be  prepared  showing  the  road  to  Paris. 
He  saw  unmoved  the  act  of  heroic  despair  when  the 
French  grenadier  leaped  into  the  Meuse,  remarking  that 
it  "  excited  passionate  hatred  among  the  Allies,"  who 


i792]  GOETHE  IN  FRANCE  175 

"  had  promised  themselves  a  different  state  of  feeling." 
His  cold  comment  on  seeing  villages  in  flames  was, 
"  Smoke  has  not  a  bad  effect  in  a  war  picture."  He 
showed  himself,  by  his  own  account,  a  thorough  courtier, 
enjoying  costly  privileges  and  comforts  at  the  expense 
of  poor  men  and  boys  and  tortured  horses,  but  ever 
solicitous  of  the  welfare  of  his  prince.  The  contrast 
with  Wordsworth's  patient  care  to  learn  what  was  right 
and  anxious  zeal  to  alleviate  suffering  is  very  marked. 
And  in  their  comments  on  public  affairs  the  difference 
is  like  that  which  exists  between  two  widely  separated 
epochs,  Wordsworth  is  so  much  more  modern. 

The  day  after  the  battle  of  Valmy  the  Revolution 
entered  upon  its  third  legislative  stage,  with  the 
opening  of  the  Convention.  At  once  the  Republic 
was  declared.  Even  in  1804  the  poet  still  felt  the  stir 
of  exultation  when  he  narrated  the  repulse  of  the 
invading  host  :* 

Presumptuous  cloud,  on  whose  black  front  was  written 
The  tender  mercies  of  the  dismal  wind. 

Rash  men,  the  princes  of  the  north  had  seen  their 
quarry  turn  into  avengers  from  whose  wrath  they  fled 
in  terror. f 

Disappointment  and  dismay 
Remained  for  all  whose  fancies  had  run  wild 
With  evil  expectations;  confidence 
And  perfect  triumph  for  the  better  cause. 

Cheered,  he  tells  us,  with  hope  that  the  crimes  of  early  I 
September  were  but  ephemeral  monsters,  and  elate 
with  confidence  in  the  Republic,  Wordsworth  returned 
to  the  "  fierce  Metropolis."  With  ardour  hitherto  un- 
felt,  he  ranged  over  the  city,  visiting  the  scenes  of 
recent  note,  passing  the  prison  where  lay  the  dethroned 
monarch,  walking  through  the  half-ruined  palace  of  the 
Tuileries,  dazed  by  what  he  saw,  and  unable  to  conceive 
its  meaning.  But  that  night  the  sense  of  danger  leaped 
upon  him  from  out  the  dark :  he  remembered  what  Paris 
could  do.     St.  Bartholomew,  the  September  massacres, 

*  "  Prelude,"  X.  13.  f   Ibid.,  27. 


176  BEAUPUY  AND  BLOIS  [chap,  vm 

and  what  next  ?     He  saw  the  Terror  striding  out  of 
future  time.     "  That  night,"  he  writes,* 

I  felt  most  deeply  in  what  world  I  was, 

What  ground  I  trod  on,  and  what  air  I  breathed. 

High  was  my  room  and  lonely,  near  the  roof 

Of  a  large  mansion  or  hotel,  a  lodge 

That  would  have  pleased  me  in  more  quiet  times  ; 

Nor  was  it  wholly  without  pleasure  then. 

With  unextinguished  taper  I  kept  watch, 

Reading  at  intervals ;  the  fear  gone  by 

Pressed  on  me  almost  like  a  fear  to  come. 

I  thought  of  those  September  massacres, 

Divided  from  me  by  one  little  month, 

Saw  them  and  touched:  the  rest  was  conjured  up 

From  tragic  fictions  or  true  history, 

Remembrances  and  dim  admonishments. 

The  horse  is  taught  his  manage,  and  no  star 

Of  wildest  course  but  treads  back  his  own  steps ; 

For  the  spent  hurricane  the  air  provides 

As  fierce  a  successor;  the  tide  retreats 

But  to  return  out  of  its  hiding-place 

In  the  great  deep ;  all  things  have  second  birth  ; 

The  earthquake  is  not  satisfied  at  once; 

And  in  this  way  I  wrought  upon  myself, 

Until  I  seemed  to  hear  a  voice  that  cried, 

To  the  whole  city,  "  Sleep  no  more."     The  trance 

Fled  with  the  voice  to  which  it  had  given  birth ; 

But  vainly  comments  of  a  calmer  mind 

Promised  soft  peace  and  sweet  forgetfulness. 

The  place,  all  hushed  and  silent  as  it  was, 

Appeared  unfit  for  the  repose  of  night, 

Defenceless  as  a  wood  where  tigers  roam. 

Next  day  these  direful  presentiments  no  doubt 
vanished  or  faded  in  the  brightness  of  dawn.  He  went 
forth  eagerly  through  the  still  unawakened  streets  to 
the  centre  of  excitement,  the  long  arcades  of  the  Palais 
Royal.  Here  the  daily  throng  was  already  shouting, 
and  above  the  general  noise  he  heard  the  shrill  cries  of 
hawkers,  "  Denunciation  of  the  crimes  of  Maximilian 
Robespierre."  And  into  his  hand  they  thrust  printed 
copies  of  the  speech  in  which  Louvet,  the  Girondist,  had 
essayed  to  overthrow  the  Jacobin  leader  on  October  29. 
From  the  futility  of  this  charge  Wordsworth  foresaw 

*  "Prelude,"  X.  63. 


1792]  HORRID  DREAMS  177 

that  liberty  and  life  and  death  would  soon  lie  in  the 
hands  of  those  who  ruled  the  capital ;  he  clearly  saw  the 
issue  and  who  were  the  real  combatants  :* 

The  indecision  on  their  part  whose  aim 
Seemed  best,  and  the  straightforward  palii  of  those 
Who  in  attack  or  in  defence  were  strong 
Through  their  impiety. 

Yet  did  he  not  for  a  moment  lose  trust  that  all  would 
end  well.  He  had  no  fear  for  the  ultimate  safety  of 
France;  what  distressed  him  was  delay  and  her  loss  of 
opportunity  to  do  a  work  of  honour,  a  work  that  should 
attract  and  enamour  the  nations  of  the  world.  And, 
in  a  startling  passage,  he  avows  that  he  dreamed — or 
did  he  really  form  a  plan  ? — of  offering  his  life  to  the 
cause.  Leader  or  sacrifice,  it  mattered  not  which,  he 
would  give  himself  to  France.  From  the  solidity  of 
his  character  we  are  bound  to  infer  that  he  would 
never  have  mentioned  these  thoughts  had  they  not  been 
more  than  passing  fancies.  They  must  have  taken  firm 
consistency  in  his  mind,  and  perhaps  have  grown  into 
active  purposes.  Modesty  struggles  with  a  desire  to 
tell  the  truth  in  these  deeply-considered  lines.  He 
avows  that  he  was  urged  by  a  heroic  impulse,  but  gives 
the  credit  to  Reason  working  irresistibly  through  him. 
He  tells  us  that  he  thought  of  means  of  opposing  the 
Jacobin  power,  and  of  remedies;  and  among  them  this  :f 

An  insignificant  stranger  and  obscure, 

And  one,  moreover,  little  graced  with  power 

Of  eloquence  even  in  my  native  speech, 

And  all  unfit  for  tumult  or  intrigue, 

Yet  would  I  at  this  time  with  willing  heart 

Have  undertaken  for  a  cause  so  great 

Service  however  dangerous.     I  revolved, 

How  much  the  destiny  of  Man  had  still 

Hung  upon  single  persons;  that  there  was, 

Transcendent  to  all  local  patrimony, 

One  nature,  as  there  is  one  sun  in  heaven ; 

That  objects,  even  as  they  are  great,  thereby 

Do  come  within  the  reach  of  humblest  eyes; 

That  Man  is  only  weak  through  his  mistrust 

*   "  Prelude,"  X.  130.  t   Ibid.,  148. 

I.  12 


/ 


178  BEAUPUY  AND  BLOIS  [chap,  via 

And  want  of  hope  where  evidence  divine 
Proclaims  to  him  that  hope  should  be  most  sure; 
Nor  did  the  inexperience  of  my  youth 
Preclude  conviction,  that  a  spirit  strong 
In  hope,  and  trained  to  noble  aspirations, 
A  spirit  thoroughly  faithful  to  itself, 
Is  for  Society's  unreasoning  herd 
A  domineering  instinct. 

These  are  the  lessons  of  Beaupuy ;  applied  by  a  young 
foreigner  to  himself,  they  are  the  reflections  of  a  hero. 
Had  Wordsworth  followed  his  impulse,  it  is  not  impos- 
sible that  an  instinct  of  command,  of  which  he  professed 
himself  conscious,  might  have  led  him  to  some  act  of 
melancholy  renown.  He  had  great  self-control,  tenacity, 
courage,  enthusiasm,  and  depth  of  conviction.  These 
qualities  would  have  been  recognized  and  honoured, 
perhaps  with  a  mart}T's  death.  Whatever  we  may 
imagine  as  to  the  possible  consequences,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  about  the  perfect  sincerity  of  the  disclosure. 
It  probably  understates  rather  than  exaggerates  the 
pitch  of  his  ambition. 

Then,  dragged,  he  tells  us,  by  what  seemed  "  a  chain 
of  harsh  necessity,"  he  returned  to  England,  else  doubt- 
less he* 

should  have  then  made  common  cause 
With  some  who  perished;  haply  perished  too, 
A  poor  mistaken  and  bewildered  offering. 

lie  "  withdrew  unwillingly  from  France."  His  nephew 
says:  "Reluctantly  he  tore  himself  from  Paris. "| 
What  caused  him  to  tear  himself  away  ?  It  has  often 
been  said  that  his  relatives  cut  off  his  supply  of  money. 
But  one  does  not  speak  of  such  an  act  as  a  chain  of  cir- 
cumstances. And  he  was  of  age.  We  know  that  it 
was  his  original  intention,  expressed  in  his  letters,  to 
go  home  in  the  autumn,  but  apparently  he  had  changed 
his  mind.  His  nephew,  in  the  "  Memoirs,"  says:  "  If 
he  had  remained  longer  in  the  French  capital,  he  would, 
in  all  probability,  have  fallen  a  victim  among  the 
J  Brissotins,  with  whom  he  was  intimately  connected." 

*  "  Prelude,"  X.  229.  f  "Memoirs,"  I.  76. 


i792]  PLAN  OF  MARTYRDOM  179 

This  last  phrase  can  hardly  have  been  written  at  random. 
With  whom,  among  the  section  of  the  Girondists  who 
followed   Brissot's  leadership,  was  the  poet  intimately 
connected  ?     Beaupuy  could  hardly  be  so  designated. 
Affairs  in  France  were  more  interesting  than  ever,  shortly 
before  the  close  of  the  year  1792,  and  there  was  as  yet 
no    danger    for    Englishmen    there.     The    Republican 
army    was    everywhere    victorious.     After   Valnvy    the 
Prussians  retreated  from  French  soil.     General  Custine 
entered  Mayence  on  October  20,  and  one  of  his  divisions 
got  as  far  north  as  Cassel.     The  French  soldiers  frater- 
nized  with   the   people   they   conquered;   their  officers 
used  tact  and  courtesy;   the  Republican  successes   ap- 
peared to  confirm  the  maxim  that  "  when  lenity  and 
cruelty  play  for  a  kingdom,  the  gentler  gamester  is  the 
soonest  winner."     In  the  meanwhile  the  inhabitants  of 
Savoy  and  Nice  welcomed  the  armies  sent  to  wrest  them 
from  their  connection  with  Piedmont.     Dumouriez  de- 
feated   the  Austrians    at  Jemappes    on    November  6, 
and   entered   Brussels   on   the  sixteenth.     An   attempt 
was  made  to  reorganize  Belgium  on  a  republican  basis, 
and  similar  plans  were  entertained  regarding  Holland 
and  the  South  German  States,  where  large  numbers  of 
the   townspeople  were  ready   to  support  a  republican 
regime.     On    November    18    the   Convention   passed   a 
motion  declaring  that  the  French  Republic  desired  the 
liberty  of  all  other  nations  and  would  assist  them  to 
gain   it.     This   decree,   and   still   more   the   declaration 
that    the    River   Scheldt,    which    was    previously    kept 
closed  by  treaty  in  the  interest  of  London,  was  free  to 
the  commerce  of  the  world,  and  an  order  to  Dumouriez 
to  invade  Holland,  were  of  course  provocations  to  the 
British   government,  but  war  was    still    not   declared. 
December  was  filled  with  preliminaries  for  the  King's  \/ 
trial  and   with  the   trial  itself.     He  was  beheaded  on 
January  21 . 

Before  that  date  Wordsworth  had  left  Paris.  Accord- 
ing to  an  independent  tradition,  which  can  hardly  be 
correct,  Wordsworth  had  even  associated  with  some  of 
the  Jacobins.     Alaric  Watts,  writing  of  "  an  old  Repub- 


i  So  BEAUPUY  AND  BLOIS  [chap,  vm 

lican  named  Bailey,  who  had  been  confined  in  the 
Temple  at  Paris  with  Pichegru,"  says  "  he  had  met 
Wordsworth  in  Paris,  and  having  warned  him  that  his 
connection  with  the  Mountain  rendered  his  situation 
there  at  that  time  perilous,  the  poet,  he  said,  decamped 
with  great  precipitation." 

By  an  interesting  coincidence,  his  departure  from 
France  coincided  almost  exactly  with  that  of  John 
Moore,  M.D.,  whose  "  Journal,"  from  August  4  to  the 
middle  of  December,  1792,  gives  us  in  living  detail  the 
impressions  made  by  the  events  of  the  year  upon  a 
liberal  British  observer.  When  Dr.  Moore  mentions 
walks  he  took  in  and  around  Paris  with  an  unnamed 
young  Englishman  at  a  time  when  Wordsworth  was  in 
the  city,  we  are  tempted  to  imagine  that  the  poet  was 
this  chance  companion.  Dr.  Moore  relates  many  acts 
of  devotion  to  the  Republican  cause  which  must  have 
been  known  to  Wordsworth  and  must  have  moved  him. 
He  records  the  fact  that  after  the  great  day  of  August  10, 
1792,  "  the  jewels  of  the  Queen,  many  massy  pieces  of 
plate,  very  valuable  pieces  of  furniture,  which  could 
have  been  easily  concealed,  all  the  silver  utensils  of  the 
Chapel,  were  brought  to  the  Assembly  by  those  who 
made  the  first  eruption  into  the  Palace.  Some  poor 
fellows,  who  had  not  whole  clothes  on  their  backs, 
brought  little  sacks  of  gold  and  silver  coin,  and  deposited 
them,  unopened,  in  the  hall  of  the  Assembly.  One 
soldier  brought  his  hat  full  of  louis,  and  emptied  it  on 
the  table."  He  makes  this  comment,  which  is  enough 
to  explain  WTordsworth's  unselfish  project:  "  It  is  in 
the  times  of  great  political  struggles  and  revolutions 
that  the  minds  of  men  are  most  apt  to  be  exalted  above 
the  selfish  considerations  of  ordinary  life."  And  on 
September  6,  1792,  he  writes: 

"  Amidst  the  disorders  and  sad  events  which  have 
taken  place  in  this  country  of  late,  it  is  impossible  not 
to  admire  the  generous  spirit  which  glows  all  over  the 
nation  in  support  of  its  independency.  Before  I  left 
Paris,  I  heard  of  a  lady  who  had  offered  to  the  National 
Assembly  to  take  twelve  poor  children,  whose  parents 


i792]  PASSAGE  THROUGH  PARIS  181 

died  in  defence  of  their  country,  and  to  be  at  the  whole 
expense  of  educating  and  supporting  them  to  the  age 
of  sixteen  !  I  have  heard  of  many  similar  instances  ! 
No  country  ever  displayed  a  nobler  or  more  patriotic 
enthusiasm  than  pervades  France  at  this  period." 

Naturally  enough,  Dorothy  Wordsworth  suffered  some 
anxiety  on  her  brother's  account,  as  he  was  absent  much 
longer  than  she  had  expected.  As  early  as  May  6,  1792, 
she  expressed  in  a  letter  to  Jane  Pollard,  only  a  small 
fragment  of  which  has  been  published,  her  hope  of  seeing 
William  in  London,  on  her  way  from  Forncett  to  Windsor 
in  July:* 

'  William  is  still  in  France,  and  I  begin  to  wish  he 
was  in  England.  He  assures  me,  however,  that  he  is 
perfectly  safe,  but  as  we  hear  daily  accounts  of  insur- 
rections and  broils,  I  cannot  be  quite  easy,  though  I 
think  he  is  wise  enough  to  get  out  of  the  way  of  danger.' 

To  console  herself,  she  copies  out  for  her  friend  a 
sonnet  of  her  brother's,  chosen,  as  the  context  shows, 
from  a  number  of  his  poems  in  her  possession : 

Sweet  was  the  walk  along  the  narrow  lane 
At  noon.     The  bank  and  hedgerows  all  the  way 
Shagged  with  wild  pale  green  tufts  of  fragrant  hay, 
Caught  by  the  hawthorns  from  the  loaded  wain, 
Which  Age,  with  many  a  slow  stoop,  strove  to  gain ; 
And  Childhood,  seeming  still  most  busy,  took 
His  little  rake;  with  cunning  sidelong  look 
Sauntering  to  pluck  the  strawberries  wild,  unseen. 
Now  too  on  melancholy's  idle  dreams 
Musing,  the  lone  spot  with  my  soul  agrees, 
Quiet  and  dark;  for  (through)  the  thick  wove  trees 
Scarce  peeps  the  curious  star,  till  solemn  gleams 
The  clouded  moon,  and  calls  me  forth  to  stray 
Through  tall  green  silent  woods  and  ruins  gray. 

In  a  letter  from  Windsor,  postmarked  October  19, 
1 792,  she  says  :f  "  My  brother  William  is  still  in  France." 

*    From  the  original,  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Marshall. 

f  To  Jane  Pollard;  letter  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Marshall. 


■hV 


CHAPTER  IX 

A  REVOLUTIONIST  IN  ENGLAND 

The  poet  dismissed  the  next  three  years  in  one  sentence 
of  the  autobiographical  memoranda : 

'  I  came  home  before  the  execution  of  the  King,  and 
passed  the  subsequent  time  among  my  friends  in  London 
and  elsewhere,  till  I  settled  with  my  only  sister  at  Race- 
down  in  Dorsetshire,  in  the  year  1796." 

Yet  no  period  of  his  life  was  more  full  of  consequence 
for  him.  This  was  his  time  of  storm  and  stress.  It  was 
largely  because  of  what  he  underwent  between  1 792  and 
1796  that  he  became  one  of  the  voices  of  his  age.  Much 
of  the  interest  and  value  of  his  poetry  depends  upon  our 
knowing  its  less  immediate  meaning,  its  political  and 
philosophical  import.  If  his  own  account  of  these 
critical  formative  years  is  provokingly  meagre,  all  other 
accounts  are  scanty  enough.  Our  chief  dependence  is 
upon  a  series  of  letters  to  his  friend  Mathews.  "  The 
Prelude  "  itself,  hitherto  full  of  significant  detail, 
passes  rapidly  and  vaguely  over  the  time  that  followed 
-yiw  nis  return  from  France.  Of  course,  "  The  Excursion  " 
is  an  elaborate  commentary  on  his  inner  life  during  those 
years,  but  our  appreciation  of  "  The  Excursion  "  is 
enhanced  by  every  item  of  knowledge  concerning  his 
goings  and  comings,  his  plans  and  efforts.  "  The 
Excursion  "  is  scarcely  less  autobiographical  than  "  The 
Prelude."  It  is  the  most  profound  and  sensitive  com- 
ment literature  has  made  upon  the  most  tremendous 
social  upheaval  of  modern  times.  And  its  depth,  its 
truth,  its  feeling,  are  due  to  the  fact  that  it  reflects  the 
sympathy  and  repulsion  of  a  passionate  soul  who  had 
lived  what  he  wrote.     Yet  one  reason  why  this  great 

182 


y 


1793'  RETURN  TO  LONDON  183 

poem  has  failed,  as  it  undoubtedly  has  failed,  to  make 
an  impression  on  many  readers  who  thoroughly  enjoy 
"  The  Prelude,"  is  that  the  poet  has  been  too  reticent. 

Wordsworth's  position  on  returning  to  England,  and 
for  nearly  three  years  afterwards,  was  extremely  un- 
comfortable. He  had  no  home,  and  was  obliged  to  live, 
with  friends  and  relatives.  He  had  no  profession,  and 
was  less  inclined  than  ever  to  become  a  clergyman,  thusi; 
disappointing  his  family.  His  principles  were  abhorrent 
to  them.  He  was  a  republican.  He  was  not  orthodox., 
He  led  an  unsettled  life.  His  uncles  were  irritated  by 
his  conduct.  /There  is  nothing  to  prove  that  he  had 
much  to  do  with  his  brother  Richard,  who  was  estab- 
lished as  a  solicitor  in  London.  Christopher  was  at 
Cambridge,  and  John  at  sea.  But  his  sister's  faith  in 
him  never  faltered.  Her  enthusiasm  for  his  character, 
her  romantic  interest  in  his  doings,  never  grew  less.  He 
did  not  visit  her  on  his  return.  In  her  letter  of  August 
3°,  1793,  to  Jane  Pollard,  she  says:*  "  It  is  nearly  three 
years  since  my  brother  and  I  parted.  It  will  be  exactly 
three  years  when  we  meet  again."  The  passage  in  her 
letter  of  June  16,  1793, f  where  she  writes:  "  It  was  in 
winter  (at  Christmas)  that  he  was  last  at  Forncett," 
probably  refers  to  the  vacation  in  1790-91,  just  before 
he  took  his  degree.  Still  cherishing  the  idea  that  he 
was  to  enter  the  ranks  of  the  clergy,  she  fondly  pictured 
herself  living  with  him  at  last  in  their  own  little  parson- 
age. Comparing  Christopher  with  William,  she  writes 
on  February  16,  with  her  gift  of  discrimination  : X 

"  He  is  like  William,  with  the  same  traits  in  his 
character,  but  less  highly  touched.  He  is  not  so  ardent 
in  any  of  his  pursuits,  but  is  attached  to  the  same  ones 
which  have  so  irresistible  an  influence  over  William  that 
they  deprive  him  of  the  power  of  chaining  his  attention 
to  others  discordant  with  his  feelings." 

These  are  words  which  paint  a  portrait.  His  qualities 
highly  touched,  his  ardour,  his  impatience  with  uncon- 

*   From  the  original,  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Marshall. 
\   Incorrectly  dated  1792  in  Myers's  "  Wordsworth." 
X   From  the  original,  in  the  possessipn  ol  Mr.  Mai^l.all. 


• 


y 


1 84       A  REVOLUTIONIST  IN  ENGLAND     [chap.  ix 

genial  pursuits,  are  marks  of  a  poetic  temperament. 
Miss  Pollard  may  not  have  been  interested  in  these 
effusions,  but  how  charming  is  the  writer's  confidence 
that  nothing  which  concerns  her  wonderful  brother 
can  be  tedious  !  Christopher,  she  continues,  "  is  steady 
and  sincere  in  his  attachments,"  and  then  she  makes 
haste  to  add : 

"  William  has  both  these  virtues  in  an  eminent  degree ; 
and  a  sort  of  violence,  if  I  may  so  term  it,  which  demon- 
strates itself  every  day,  when  the  objects  of  his  affec- 
tion are  present  with  him,  in  a  thousand  almost  imper- 
ceptible attentions  to  their  wishes,  in  a  sort  of  restless 
watchfulness  which  I  know  not  how  to  describe,  a  ten- 
derness that  never  sleeps,  and  at  the  same  time  such  a 
delicacy  of  manner  as  I  have  observed  in  few  men." 

Then  she  gives  free  rein  to  her  fancy,  depicting  the 
life  with  William  for  which  she  longed : 

"  I  look  forward  to  the  happiness  of  receiving  3^ou  in 
my  little  parsonage.     I  hope  you  will  spend  at  least  a 
year  with  me.     I   have  laid   the  particular  scheme  of 
happiness  for  each  season.     When  I  think  of  winter,  I 
hasten  to  furnish  our  little  parlour.     I  close  the  shutters, 
set  out  the  tea-table,  brighten  the  fire.     When  our  re- 
freshment is  ended,  I  produce  our  work,  and  William 
brings  his  book  to  our  table,  and  contributes  at  once  to 
our  instruction  and  amusement;  and,  at  intervals,  we 
lay  aside  the  book;  and  each  hazard  observations  on 
what   has   been   read,   without   the   fear   of  ridicule   or 
censure.     We  talk  over  past  days.     We  do  not  sigh  for 
any    pleasures    beyond    our    humble    habitation, — '  the 
central   place    of   all   our   joys.'     With   such   romantic 
dreams  I  amuse  my  fancy  during  many  an  hour  which 
would  otherwise  pass  heavily  along;  for  kind  as  are  my 
uncle  and  aunt,  much  as  I  love  my  cousins,  I  cannot 
help  heaving  many  a  sigh  at  the  reflection  that  I  have 
passed  one-and-twenty  years  of  my  life,  and  that  the 
first  six  years  only  of  that  time  were  spent  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  the  same  pleasures  that  were  enjoyed  by  my 
brothers,  and  that  I  was  then  too  young  to  be  sensible 
of  the  blessing.     We  have  been  endeared  to  each  other 
by  earl}r  misfortune.      We  in  the  same  moment  lost  a 
father,  a  mother,  a  home.     We  have  been  equally  de- 
prived of  our  patrimony  by  the  cruel  hand  of  lordly 


1793]  FIRST  PUBLICATIONS  185 

tyranny.  These  afflictions  have  all  contributed  to  unite 
us  closer  by  the  bonds  of  affection,  notwithstanding  we 
have  been  compelled  to  spend  our  youth  far  asunder." 

Immediately  upon  arriving  in  England,  Wordsworth 
busied   himself  with   preparing   for   the   press   his  first    ' 
volume   of   poetry,   "  Descriptive   Sketches."     It    is    a 
slim  book  with  broad  leaves,  handsomely,  though  care- 
lessly, printed.     The  title-page  is  as  follows: 

"  Descriptive  Sketches/in  verse/taken  during  a  Pedestrian  Tour 
/in  the/ Italian,  Orison,  Swiss,  and  Savoyard/Alps/by  W.  Words- 
worth, B.A./Of  St.  John's,  Cambridge 


'  Loca  pastorum  deserta  atque  otia  dia.' 

Lucret. 
'  Castella  in  tumulis — 
— Et  longe  saltus  lateque  vacantes.' 

Virgil. 
London :/Printed  for  J.  Johnson.     St.  Paul's  Churchyard./i793.'' 

If  the  date  of  a  letter  by  Dorothy  Wordsworth  to 
Jane  Pollard  has  been  correctly  deciphered  as  February 
16,  it  would  seem  that  not  only  this  volume,  but  another, 
much  like  it  in  appearance,  were  printed  very  early  in 
the  year  1793.  The  numerous  errors  in  both  poems, 
and  Miss  Wordsworth's  expression  of  regret  that  her 
brother  had  not  shown  his  poems  to  some  friend  for 
criticism  before  publication,  prove  that  they  were  printed 
in  haste,  so  that  it  is  quite  possible  the}'  may  have  ap- 
peared by  the  middle  of  February.  The  title-page  of 
the  second  little  book  is : 

"  An/Evening  Walk. /An  Epistle  ;/In  Verse./Addressed  to  a  Young 
Lady, /from  the/Lakes/of  the/North  of  England/by  W.  Wordsworth, 
B.A.  Of  St.  John's,  Cambridge./London :/Printed  for  J.  Johnson, 
St.  Paul's  Church -Yard,/ 1 793." 

At  the  end  is  an  advertisement  of  "  Descriptive 
Sketches,"  "  just  published,  by  the  same  Author."  In 
the  letter  referred  to  above,  Miss  Wordsworth,  after  a 
pathetic  complaint  that  she  is  still  separated  from  her 
brothers,  says : 

"  By  this  time  you  have  doubtless  seen  my  brother 
William's  poems.  .  .  .  The  scenes  which  he  describes 
have  been  viewed  with  a  poet's  eye,  and  are  pourtrayed 


/ 


1 86       A  REVOLUTIONIST  IN  ENGLAND     [chap,  ix 

with  a  poet's  pencil,  and  the  poems  contain  many  pas- 
sages exquisitely  beautiful ;  but  they  also  contain  many 
faults,  the  chief  of  which  is  obscurity,  and  a  too  frequent 
use  of  some  particular  expressions  and  uncommon  words." 

And  she  mentions  "  viewless  "  and  "  moveless,"  the 
former  of  which  occurs  four  times  in  "  Descriptive 
Sketches,"  and  once  in  "  An  Evening  Walk,"  and  the 
latter  once  in  "  Descriptive  Sketches,"  and  twice  in  "  An 
Evening  Walk  " — in  the  original  editions,  of  course. 

■"  I  regret  exceedingly,"  she  continues,  "  that  he  did 
not  submit  these  works  to  the  inspection  of  some  friend 
before  their  publication,  and  he  also  joins  with  me  in 
this  regret.  Their  faults  are  such  as  a  young  poet  was 
most  likely  to  fall  into,  and  least  likely  to  discover,  and 
what  the  suggestions  of  a  friend  would  easily  have  made 
him  see  and  at  once  correct.  It  is,  however,  an  error 
he  will  never  fall  into  again,  as  he  is  well  aware  that  he 
would  have  gained  considerably  more  credit  if  the 
blemishes  of  which  I  speak  had  been  corrected.  My 
brother  Kit  and  I,  while  he  was  at  Forncett,  amused 
ourselves  by  analyzing  every  line,  and  prepared  a  ver}- 
bulky  criticism,  which  he  was  to  transmit  to  William 
as  soon  as  he  could  have  added  to  it  the  remarks  of  a 
/Cambridge  friend." 

'.  It  is  possible  that  this  friend  was  Coleridge.  In 
Christopher  Wordsworth's  diary,  under  date  of  Tuesda}?-, 
November  5,  1793,  occurs  the  following  delightful  entry: 

"  Roused  about  nine  o'clock  by  Bilsborrow  and  Le- 
Grice  with  a  proposal  to  become  member  of  a  literal- 
society  :  the  members  they  mentioned  as  having  already 
come  into  the  plan  Coleridge,  Jes.,  Satterthwaite,  Rough, 
and  themselves,  Trin.  C,  and  Franklin,  Pembroke.  .  .  . 
Got  all  into  a  box  [at  a  coffee-house]  and  (having  met 
with  the  Monthly  Review  of  my  Brother's  Poems), 
entered  into  a  good  deal  of  literary-  and  critical  conversa- 
tion on  Dr.  Darwin,  Miss  Seward,  Mrs.  Smith,  Bowles, 
and  my  Brother.  Coleridge  spoke  of  the  esteem  in 
which  m}r  Brother  was  holden  by  a  society  at  Exeter/* 

*  Mr.  Thomas  Hutchinson,  editor  of  the  Oxford  "  Wordsworth," 
discovered  that  a  literary  society  of  twelve  members  was  founded  at 
Exeter  in  1786  by  Hugh  Downman  and  Jackson,  the  organist  of  the 
cathedral,  and  that  a  volume  of  the  essays  and  verses  read  at  the  weekly 
meetings  was  published  in  1790. 


i793]         COLERIDGE  READS  THE  POEMS  187 

of  which  Downman  and  Hole  were  members,  as  did 
Bilsborrow  (as  he  had  before  told  me)  of  his  repute  with 
Dr.  Darwin,  Miss  Seward,  etc.,  etc.,  at  Derby.  Cole- 
ridge talked  Greek,  Max.  Tyrius  he  told  us,  and  spouted 
out  of  Bowles." 

William  Bowles  and  Erasmus  Darwin  were  poets 
held  in  high  esteem  at  that  time.  Bowles  occupied  the 
exalted  post  in  Coleridge's  mind  which  Wordsworth 
was  to  fill  later. 

"  I  had  just  entered  on  my  seventeenth  year,"  writes 
Coleridge  in  "  Biographia  Literaria,"  "  when  the  Sonnets 
of  Mr.  Bowles,  twenty  in  number,  and  just  then  pub- 
lished in  a  quarto  pamphlet,  were  first  made  known  and 
presented  to  me.  ...  As  my  school  finances  did  not 
permit  me  to  purchase  copies,  I  made  within  less  than 
a  year  and  a  half  more  than  forty  transcriptions  as  the 
best  presents  I  could  offer  to  those  who  had  in  any  way 
won  my  regard,  and  with  almost  equal  delight  did  I 
receive  the  three  or  four  following  publications  of  the 
same  author." 

WTith  all  allowance  for  Coleridge's  readiness  to  take 
fire,  he  cannot  be  charged  with  want  of  discernment  in 
his  literary  enthusiasms.  It  means  much  that  he 
should  have  perceived  in  Wordsworth's  earliest  notes 
the  qualities  of  freshness  and  naturalness  which  he  felt 
in  Bowles,  and  which  undoubtedly  exist  in  some  at 
least  of  the  twenty  sonnets.  As  J.  Dykes  Campbell 
observed,*  had  Coleridge  first  met  with  Cowper,  or 
with  Burns,  he  would  have  been  less  strongly  impressed 
by  Bowles.  It  is  remarkable  indeed  that  a  boy  brought 
up  in  a  London  boarding-school  should  have  received 
any  impulse  towards  communion  with  nature  from  so 
mild  a  poet  as  Bowles,  who  himself  had  by  no  means 
wholly  broken  with  classical  tradition.  We  simply 
have  to  fall  back  on  the  reflection  that  Coleridge  had  a 
more  apprehensive  and  sympathetic  mind  than  anyone 
else  then  living.  As  the  quotation  from  Christopher's 
diary  shows,  the  first  impact  of  Wordsworth's  spirit 
upon  Coleridge,  an  occurrence  memorable  in  the  history 

*   In  lu^  "  Life  of  Coleridge." 


188       A  REVOLUTIONIST  IN  ENGLAND     [chap,  ix 

/'  of  poetry  and  of  criticism,  probably  took  place  before 
the  autumn  of  1793.  Coleridge  visited  his  family  at 
Ottery  St.  Mary  in  the  long  vacation  of  that  year. 
Passing  through  Exeter,  he  may  have  heard  the 
"  society  "  of  which  he  spoke  expressing  their  esteem 
of  Wordsworth's  poetry,  or,  as  is  far  more  likely,  he  may 
have  carried  one  of  the  volumes  with  him  from  London 
or  Cambridge,  and  "  spouted  "  the  lines  of  a  strange 
new  poet  to  a  wondering  provincial  audience,  himself 
creating,  and  perhaps  retaining  exclusive  possession 
of,  the  enthusiasm.  He  tells  us  in  the  "  Biographia 
Literaria  "  that  during  his  first  Cambridge  vacation  he 
"  assisted  a  friend  in  a  contribution  for  a  literary 
society  in  Devonshire." 

The  two  poems  which  so  stirred  Coleridge  were  sub- 
jected by  Wordsworth  to  much  revision  in  later  editions. 
This  is  unfortunate,  for  their  intrinsic  merit  is  at  least 
equalled  by  their  value  as  a  record  of  his  early  powers. 
In  considering  them,  I  shall  therefore  refer  always  to 
the  editions  of  1793.  Professor  George  Herbert  Palmer 
very  kindly  allowed  me  once  to  examine  his  copies, 
which  belonged  to  Dorothy  Wordsworth,  and  contain 
marginal  notes  and  interlineations  by  the  author. 

"  Descriptive  Sketches  "  is  correctly  reprinted  from 
the  first  edition  in  the  Appendix  to  Vol.  I.  of  Knight's 
"  Poems  of  William  Wordsworth."  M.  Legouis,  who 
has  applied  to  the  study  of  these  two  poems  his  truly 
wonderful  knowledge  of  our  literature,  and  has  traced 
to  many  diverse  sources  their  diction,  their  turns  of 
thought,  their  allusions,  however  faint,  says  that  "  An 
Evening  Walk  "  belongs,  as  regards  the  style  of  its 
imposition,  to  Wordsworth's  Cambridge  days.  This 
Is  doubtless  true.  The  poem  carries  us  back,  indeed,  to 
Hawkshead.  Not  only  its  subject,  but  its  substance  in 
detail,  recalls  the  sleeping  lakes  and  cloud-capped  hills 
of  Cumberland.  It  yields  no  evidence  of  foreign  travel 
or  of  interest  in  public  affairs.  Its  curiously  com- 
pounded literary  flavour  could  never  have  been  con- 
cocted in  France,  where  its  author  must  have  been  almost 
wholly  deprived  of  English  books.     For  there  is  scarcely 


/; 


I7931  "  AN  EVENING  WALK  "  189 

any  other  poem  in  our  language  so  artificially  con- 
structed, so  full  of  echoes  from  older  writings.  It  con- 
tains every  device  of  the  most  extreme  "  poetic 
licence,"  every  contrivance  by  which  poets  of  the 
descriptive  school,  from  Denham  to  Goldsmith,  ren- 
dered their  own  labour  light  and  the  task  of  their  readers 
heavy.  Personification,  inversion,  ellipsis,  apostrophe, 
periphrasis,  and  all  the  unnatural  pomp  of  a  specially 
reserved  rhetoric,  abound  in  these  few  hundred  lines.* 
The  mere  diction  is  not  so  bad.  It  is  far  less  artificial 
than  the  grammar,  and  very  frequently  the  plain  and 
appropriate  word  is  used  with  a  certain  naive  courage. 
But  the  sentences  are  constructed  in  ways  sanctioned 
neither  by  common  practice  nor  by  the  venerable  usage 
of  great  poets.  Spenser  is  less  loose,  Milton  less  com- 
plex, Shakespeare  less  broken.  The  young  author 
showed  a  rare  audacity,  or  perhaps  one  should  say 
ignorance  of  danger,  in  the  length  and  unsparing  fulness 
of  his  phrase.  He  was  determined,  evidently,  to  ex- 
press his  thoughts  at  whatever  cost.  It  is  unjust  to  his 
great  predecessors  to  hint  that  their  example  excuses 
his  excess.  In  diction,  and  in  diction  only,  is  he  in- 
debted to  them.  Reminiscences  of  Shakespeare,  and  par- 
ticularly of  Milton,  run  like  a  sweet  undertone  through 
the  whole  poem.  Some  of  the  best  things  in  "  An 
Evening  Walk  "  are  echoes  of  "  Comus,"  which  has 
ever  been  a  mine  of  precious  phrases  and  charming 
images.  Wordsworth  himself,  in  footnotes  in  the 
original  edition,  acknowledged  his  indebtedness  for 
words,  phrases,  and  images,  to  Spenser,  to  Tasso,  to  the 
French  poet  Rosset,  to  Thomson,  to  Beattie,  to  Young, 

*  Professor  Stockton  Axson,  formerly  of  Princeton  University,  and  now 
of  the  Rice  institute,  Texas,  has  called  my  attention  to  the  way  in  which 
Wordsworth,  in  both  his  early  long  poems,  imitates  one  of  Crabbe's  favourite 
mannerisms — his  repetition  of  a  key-word  in  the  verse — as,  for  example, 
line  438  of  "  Descriptive  Sketches  ": 

"  Did  all  he  wished,  and  wished  but  what  he  ought  "; 

which  reminds  one  of  such  lines  in  Crabbe  as 

"  Betrayed  by  man,  then  left  tor  man  to  scorn." 
"  Exposing  most  when  most  it  yields  distress." 
"  And  begs  a  poor  protection  from  the  poor." 


190       A  REVOLUTIONIST  IN  ENGLAND     [chap,  tx 

to  Burns,  to  Greenwood,  author  of  a  "  Poem  on  Shoot- 
ing," and  to  Clark,  author  of  "  A  Survey  of  the  Lakes." 
Various  quotations  are  encrusted  in  "  An  Evening 
Walk,"  among  them  one  from  Collins.  The  most 
beautiful,  and  one  might  have  said,  the  most  Words- 
worthian  lines  in  the  poem, 

The  song  of  mountain  streams,  unheard  by  day. 
Now  scarcely  heard,  beguiles  my  homeward  way, 

were  taken  without  acknowledgment  from  Dr.  John 
Brown's  (171 5-1 766)  Dedication  to  Mr.  Romney  of 
Cumberland's  "  Ode  to  the  Sun."  Many  years  after- 
wards, in  his  "  Guide  to  the  Lakes,"  Wordsworth 
quotes  with  praise  the  passage  from  Brown's  poem, 
ending  as  follows : 

Nor  voice,  nor  sound,  broke  on  the  deep  serene; 
But  the  soft  murmur  of  swift-gushing  rills, 
Forth  issuing  from  the  mountain's  distant  steep.. 
(Unheard  till  now,  and  now  scarce  heard)  proclaim'd 
All  things  at  rest,  and  imag'd  the  still  voice 
Of  quiet,  whispering  in  the  ear  of  night. 

Though  written  in  heroic  couplets,  the  poem  is  not 
remarkable  for  point  and  vigour.  Indeed,  being  de- 
scriptive, such  a  semblance  of  point  and  vigour  as  the 
versification  necessarily  produces  tends  to  break  the 
pictures  into  a  series  of  short  glimpses  of  equal  length. 
If  the  author  had,  at  the  time  he  began  his  poem,  been 
acquainted  with  the  best  models  which  had  recently 
appeared,  with  Cowper's  "  Task  "  (1785),  for  example, 
or  at  least  if  he  had  appreciated  them,  he  would  scarcely 
have  chosen  the  heroic  couplet  as  a  medium  of  descrip- 
tion. 

As  regards  his  choice  of  words,  the  poet  shows  himself 
thoroughly  dependent  upon  the  example,  both  good  and 
bad,  of  his  predecessors.  As  regards  the  structure  of 
his  sentences,  he  took  liberties  for  which  he  had  no 
warrant,  and  which  must  have  been  imputed  either  to 
innocence  or  to  impudence.  He  displayed  more  ambi- 
tion than  most  poets  of  the  eighteenth  century  to  achieve 
a  rich  variety  of  musical  effects.     In  this  respect  he 


1793)  OLD  AND  NEW  STYLES  191 

apparently  had  in  mind  "  L'Allegro,"  "II  Penseroso," 
and  "  Comus."  But  his  success  here  was  not  remarkable. 
Has  the  poem,  then,  no  distinction?  Is  it  in  no  way 
superior  to  other  descriptive  compositions  of  that  time, 
in  no  way  indicative  of  the  birth  of  an  original  mind  ? 
Remembering  the  enthusiasm  of  Coleridge,  we  can  do 
no  less  than  look  below  the  diction  and  the  versification 
for  some  deeper  quality.  And  here  we  find  an  occa- 
sional directness  of  observation,  an  occasional  freshness 
of  energy,  which  are  indeed  worthy  of  note.  The  poem 
is  scarcely  more  than  a  series  of  ill-connected  pictures, 
but  these  pictures,  one  feels,  are  records  of  real  sensa- 
tions. This  is  the  beginning  of  naturalness.  No  one 
could  doubt  that  the  writer  had  seen  most  of  the  things 
he  described.  And  the  episode  of  the  mother  with  her 
starving  children,  which  was  evidently  imagined,  not 
remembered,  charms  by  another  quality  which  pervades 
the  poem — namely,  a  sort  of  moral  fervour.  -  It  is  quite 
likely  that  this  passage,  which  may  be  readily  detached 
from  its  context/  was  written  after  Wordsworth's  return 
from  France/  It  reveals  an  interest  in  the  victims  of 
war  keener  than  he  would  be  likely  to  have  felt  before 
that  time.  The  fact  that  all  the  pictures  are  scenes  from 
humble  life  only  reminds  us  of  the  democratic  simplicity 
of  his  early  days./  Perhaps  it  may  seem  presumptuous 
to  pick  out  the  lines  which  I  think  likely  to  have  caught 
the  eye  of  Coleridge.  But  Coleridge  did,  and  still  does, 
so  much  to  form  men's  judgment  in  matters  of  this  kind 
that  the  responsibility  is  his  rather  than  my  own.  He 
must,  I  think,  have  felt  the  startling  power  of  imagina- 
tion in  the  word  "  tremulous,"  when  the  poem  speaks  of 

the  roar 
That  stuns  the  tremulous  clilis  of  high  Lodore. 

He  must  have  realized  how  faithful  was  the  poet's  effort 
to  reproduce  a  natural  scene,  with  its  peculiar  atmos- 
phere and  even  its  movement,  in  the  following  lines: 

When  m  the  south,  the  wan  noon  brooding  still, 
Breathed  a  pale  steam  around  the  glaring  hill, 
And  shades  oi  deep  embattled  clouds  were  seen 
Spotting  the  northern  cliffs  with  hyhts  between. 


192       A  REVOLUTIONIST  IN  ENGLAND     [chap,  ix 

and  the  rest  of  the  passage.  The  "  subtle  sunbeams  " 
that  shine  in  "  the  dark-brown  bason  "  of  the  water- 
brook  would  arrest  his  eye,  when  perchance  he  had  just 
smiled  at  the  author's  conveyance  of  Milton's  epithet 
"  huddling  "  from  "  Comus."  Perhaps  in  his  native 
Devonshire  he  may  have  witnessed  some  equivalent  for 
the  way  the  wise  sheep-dogs  of  the  Lake  country  are 
directed  from  a  distance  by  their  masters,  which  Words- 
worth describes  in  plain  language,  with  only  one  inver- 
sion, one  abbreviation,  one  substitution  of  an  adjective 
for  an  adverb,  and  one  obscure  term : 

Waving  his  hat,  the  shepherd  in  the  vale 
Directs  his  winding  dog  the  cliffs  to  scale, 
That,  barking  busy  'mid  the  glittering  rocks, 
Hunts,  where  he  points,  the  intercepted  flocks. 

The  description  of  the  swans,  especially  that  of  the 
female,  who  "  in  a  mother's  care,  her  beauty's  pride 
forgets,"  is  worthy  of  a  place  in  almost  any  bucolic 
poem,  and  fairly  triumphs  over  the  cruel  restrictions 
of  the  rhymed  couplet.  In  the  account  of  the  soldier's 
widow,  one  is  struck  by  the  line, 

On  cold  blue  nights,  in  hut  or  straw-built  shed, 

which  strangely  resembles  the  lines  of  Burns 's  "  First 
Epistle  to  Davie,  a  Brother  Poet  ": 

To  lie  in  kilns  and  barns  at  e'en 
When  banes  are  crazed,  and  bluid  is  thin. 
Is,  doubtless,  great  distress  ! 

and  by  the  poor  woman's  first-born  child  being  called, 
in  a  phrase  worthy  of  Dante,  "  her  elder  grief."  It  is 
hardly  possible  that  Wordsworth  was  the  first  poet  to 
speak  of  a  boat  moving  slowly  over  rippling  water  as  a 
"  talking  boat,"  but  I  do  not  remember  to  have  seen 
the  expression  elsewhere.     His  line, 

The  tremulous  sob  of  the  complaining  owl, 

hits  the  plaintive  note  much  better  than  any  of  the 
thousand  and  one  statements  that  it  hoots,  which  for 
my  part  I  have  never  heard  it  do.     The  couplet, 

Fair  Spirits  are  abroad ;  in  sportive  chase 
Brushing  with  lucid  wands  the  water's  face, 


i793]  "  DESCRIPTIVE  SKETCHES"  193 

is  what  Wordsworth  himself  would  have  termed  an 
expression  of  fancy,  not  of  imagination.  It  is  highly 
artificial,  but  how  charming,  how  like  our  elder  poets  ! 
Finally,  Coleridge  could  not  have  understood,  but 
Dorothy  would  read  through  brimming  tears  the  heart- 
felt petition  of  the  poet  for  a  humble  home, 

Where  we,  my  friend,  to  golden  days  shall  rise, 
Till  our  small  share  of  hardly-paining  sighs 
(For  sighs  will  ever  trouble  human  breath) 
Creep  hush'd  into  the  tranquil  breast  of  Death. 

This  was  what  she  longed  for,  and  these  lines  bore  to 
her  the  private  message  and  signature  of  her  brother. 

"  Descriptive  Sketches  "  had  a  quite  different  origin 
from  that  of  "  An  Evening  Walk."     It  was  conceived' 
later,  and  drawn  from  sources  more  widely  scattered 
and  less  intimately  known.     It  dates  in  no  sense  from 
an  earlier  occasion  than  the  vacation  journey  with  Jones 
on  the  Continent,  and  the  poet  said  to  Miss  Fenwick: 
"  Much  the  greatest  part  of  this  poem  was  composed 
during  my  walks  upon  the  banks  of  the  Loire  in  the 
years  1791,  1792,"  a  remark  which  is  confirmed,  so  far 
as  the  dates  are  concerned,  in  what  appears  to  be  his 
own  handwriting,  in  the  copy  belonging  to  Professor 
Palmer.     Its  general  plan  is  very  simple.     We  have 
first   a   passage   commending  foot-travel,   then   an   ex- 
tremely  brief  summary   in   eight   lines   of   the   march 
through   France,  followed  by  a  series  of  loosely  con- 
nected pictures — the  Grande  Chartreuse,  the  Lake  of 
Como,  a  storm  in   the  Alps,  other  Swiss  scenes — and 
finally  the  praise  of  poverty,  simplicity,  liberty,  and 
republicanism.     Many   of   the   same   extravagances   of 
diction  which  amazed  the  reader  of  "An  Evening  Walk  " 
mar   the   second    work   also.     There   is,    however,   less 
borrowing   from    other  poets.     The   sentence-structure 
is  even    more    arbitrary   and    confused.     The   musical 
effects  are,  naturally,  more  ambitious  and  more  varied, 
though  many  blemishes  may  be  detected  by  any  sensi- 
tive ear.     The  "  picturesque,"   a   term   which  Words- 
worth scornfully  rejected,  but  which  is  the  only  one 
i.  13 


194       A  REVOLUTIONIST  IN  ENGLAND     [chap,  ix 

really  applicable  to   his  chief  efforts  in   this  piece,  is 

achieved  by  violence,  but  it  is  achieved.     There  are 

many  striking  scenes,  and  some  which  charm  by  their 

completeness   and   inner   harmony.     In   "  An   Evening 

.  Walk  "  the  human  element  was  supplied  by  the  soldier's 

•v    widow  and  her  children,  by  an  occasional  shepherd  or 

swain,  and   chiefly  by  personifying  every   object   and 

'  idea  mentioned.     In  "  Descriptive  Sketches  "  the  widow 

/  reappears   as  a  gipsy  of  the  Grisons,  with   her  babe, 

wandering  over  the  mountains  in  a  storm   by  night. 

We  have  alluring  maidens,  whose  charms  were  much 

reduced  in  later  editions.     Personification  is  still  carried 

to  excess ;  and  in  the  second  half  of  the  poem  a  new 

element,  scarcely  foreshadowed  at  all  in  "  An  Evening 

Walk,"  appears  and  dominates  the  work.     This  is  the 

cause  of  Man  as  Man,  and  to  see  how  it  swept  the  poet 

on  a  new  current  away  from  his  original  design,  we  must 

read,  not  the  softened  conclusion  in  late  editions,  but 

the  lines  as  they  were  first  printed. 

To  consider  once  more  for  a  moment  the  workman- 
ship of  the  poem,  it  must  be  admitted  that  in  general 
composition  or  ordering  of  parts  it  lacks  unity;  and 
although  I  think  M.  Legouis  sometimes  strains  a  point 
in  attempting  to  show  that  this  or  that  word  or  phrase 
was  borrowed,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  has  con- 
victed Wordsworth  of  astonishing  verbal  dependence 
upon  poetic  tradition,  and,  indeed,  of  having  chosen  bad 
models  and  exceeded  their  faults.  Furthermore,  not 
even  by  making  allowance  for  the  poet's  youth  and 
exuberance  can  we  escape  being  astounded  by  the 
depths  of  his  obscurity  and  the  heights  of  his  audacity. 
Can  anyone  represent  to  himself  "  Silence,  on  her  night 
of  wing  "  ?  Can  anyone  read  without  a  smile,  in  the 
account  of  the  riots  and  gunfire  at  the  Grande  Char- 
treuse, 

The  thundering  tube  the  aged  angler  hears, 
And  swells  the  groaning  torrent  with  his  tears  ? 

The  full  enormity  of  the  following  lines  is  withheld  from 
a  reverent  reader  of  Wordsworth  until  dogged  syntax 


i793]  CURIOUS  ARTIFICES  195 

insists  that  "  his  "  can  have  no  other  antecedent  than 
"  infant  Rhine."     "  Shall  we,"  the  poet  writes, 

led  where  Viamala's  chasms  confine 
Th'  indignant  waters  of  the  infant  Rhine, 
Bend  o'er  th*  abyss  ? — the  else  impervious  gloom 
His  burning  eyes  with  fearful  fight  illume. 

Describing  a  chamois-hunter  cut  off  from  retreat  by 
slippery  rocks,  he  imparts  a  singular  piece  of  informa- 
tion with  an  outrageous  figure  of  speech : 

To  wet  the  peak's  impracticable  sides 
He  opens  of  his  feet  the  sanguine  tides, 
Weak  and  more  weak  the  issuing  current  eyes 
Lapp'd  by  the  panting  tongue  of  thirsty  skies. 

Some  of  the  longer  passages  in  which  the  poet  strives  to 
reproduce  the  sublimity  and  terror  of  the  Alps  are  so 
confused  as  to  be  almost  unintelligible.  For  anything 
like  such  overwhelming  of  mere  grammar  by  poetic 
vision,  we  must  turn  to  Shelley's  "  Revolt  of  Islam  " 
and  "  Queen  Mab,"  and  these  are  clean-cut  in  com- 
parison. In  "  An  Evening  Walk  "  we  find  little  that 
is  not  purely  sensuous.  Physical  observation,  though 
recorded  as  if  nature  were  an  assemblage  of  souls, 
masculine  and  feminine,  with  feelings  like  those  of 
men  and  women,  forms  the  basis  of  "  Descriptive 
Sketches  "  also.  No  other  poet  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, except  Dr.  Darwin,  had  indulged  so  riotously  in 
personification.  Few,  also,  it  must  be  remarked,  had 
been  willing  to  content  themselves  to  such  an  extent, 
without  ulterior  purpose,  with  description. 

Three  lines  near  the  beginning  and  an  occasional 
reference  later  to  the  pleasures  of  Melancholy  might  lead 
to  the  overhasty  inference  that  the  poet  was  in  love 
when  he  set  out  upon  his  journey  in  1790: 

Me,  lur'd  by  hope  her  sorrows  to  remove, 
A  heart,  that  could  not  much  itself  approve, 
O'er  Gallia's  wastes  of  corn  dejected  led. 

But  we  have  already  seen  that  the  cause  of  his  self- 
reproach  was  his  failure  to  enjoy  the  prescribed  studies 


196       A  REVOLUTIONIST  IN  ENGLAND     [chap,  rx 

of  the  university,  and  his  long  letter  to  his  sister  in 
September,  1790,  could  be  taken  against  a  thousand 
poetic  sighs  as  evidence  of  a  free  and  joyous  heart,  a 
mind  alert  and  keen,  and  a  body  hardened  by  a  triumphal 
march  of  many  weeks  through  glorious  scenery.  These 
professions  of  sadness  may  be  dismissed  as  pure  conven- 
tion, as  belonging  to  the  genre  of  descriptive  poetry,  and 
as  what  is  to  be  expected  of  very  young  writers. 

Something  more  formal  and  dogmatic  than  anything 
yet  prompted  by  his  native  independence  begins  to 
show  itself  in  the  second  half  of  the  poem.  1  A  corre- 
sponding change  in  style  appears.  The  following  lines 
might  have  been  written  by  the  hand  of  Pope  recalled 
to  life  for  the  purpose  of  condensing  into  maxims  the 
philosophy  of  Rousseau : 

Once  Man  entirely  free,  alone  and  wild, 

Was  bless'd  as  free — for  he  was  Nature's  child. 

He,  all  superior  but  his  God  disdain'd, 

Walk'd  none  restraining,  and  by  none  restrain'd, 

Confess'd  no  law  but  what  his  reason  taught, 

Did  all  he  wish'd,  and  wish'd  but  what  he  ought. 

/  From  this  he  proceeds  to  celebrate  the  ancient  victories 
of  the  Swiss  over  the  Austrians,  and  thence  comes  to 
depict  the  "  homely  pleasures,"  the  contentment,  and 
the  hardships  of  the  mountaineers. 

I  think  it  has  never  been  remarked  that  the  poem 
contains  a  distinct  confession  of  religious  unbelief.  Yet 
this  is  plainly  the  meaning  of  four  lines  which  conclude 
the  passage  describing  a  pilgrimage  to  the  shrine  of 
Einsiedeln.  Addressing  the  credulous  worshippers,  he 
cries : 

Without  one  hope  her  written  griefs  to  blot, 
Save  in  the  land  where  all  things  are  forgot, 
My  heart,  alive  to  transports  long  unknown, 
Half  wishes  your  delusion  were  its  own. 

Humane  aspirations  begin  to  crowd  upon  the  images 
of  nature  with  which  till  now  he  has  been  content.  The 
mention  of  Chamonix  makes  him  remember  that  Savoy 
is  not  free,  and  political  enslavement,  he  knows,  means 
poverty : 


i793]  THE  RIGHTS  OF  MAN  197 

At  such  an  hour  I  heav'd  the  human  sigh, 
When  roar'd  the  sullen  Arve  in  anger  by, 
That  not  for  thee,  delicious  vale  !  unfold 
Thy  reddening  orchards,  and  thy  fields  of  gold ; 
That  thou,  the  slave  of  slaves,  art  doomed  to  pine, 
While  no  Italian  arts  their  charms  combine 
To  teach  the  skirt  of  thy  dark  cloud  to  shine. 

With  a  truer  understanding  of  political  economy  than\ 
those  possess  who  argue  that  the  extravagance  of  the 
rich  gives  employment  to  the  poor,  he  perceives  that 
luxury  in  one  place  entails  misery  in  another : 

In  the  wide  range  of  many  a  weary  round, 

Still  have  my  pilgrim  feet  unfailing  found, 

As  despot  courts  their  blaze  of  gems  display, 

Ev'n  by  the  secret  cottage  far  away 

The  lily  of  domestic  joy  decay; 

While  Freedom's  farthest  hamlets  blessings  share, 

Found  still  beneath  her  smile,  and  only  there. 

The  casement  shade  more  luscious  woodbine  binds, 

And  to  the  door  a  neater  pathway  winds, 

At  early  morn  the  careful  housewife,  led 

To  cull  her  dinner  from  its  garden  bed, 

Of  weedless  herbs  a  healthier  prospect  sees, 

While  hum  with  busier  joy  her  happy  bees; 

In  brighter  rows  her  table  wealth  aspires, 

And  laugh  with  merrier  blaze  her  evening  fires; 

Her  infant's  cheeks  with  fresher  roses  glow, 

And  wilder  graces  sport  around  their  brow; 

By  clearer  taper  lit  a  cleanlier  board 

Receives  at  supper  hour  her  tempting  hoard; 

The  chamber  hearth  with  fresher  boughs  is  spread, 

And  whiter  is  the  hospitable  bed. 

Turning  to  France,  with  an  affectionate  outcry, 

And  thou  !  fair  favoured  region  !  which  my  soul 
Shall  love,  till  Life  has  broke  her  golden  bowl, 

he  declares  that  nature  is  more  beautiful  in  that  land  sinc£ 
Freedom  has  made  its  fields  and  skies  her  peculiar  care. 
Though  war  is  about  to  commence,  yet  may  that  land 
rejoice,  for  new  virtues  are  springing  even  from  war's 
flames :     x,  .  ,  ... 

.Nature,  as  in  her  prime,  her  virgin  reign 
Begins,  and  Love  and  Truth  compose  her  train; 
With  pulseless  hand,  and  fix'd  unwearied  gaze, 
Unbrcathing  Justice  her  still  beam  surveys. 


i98       A  REVOLUTIONIST  IN  ENGLAND     [chap,  ix 

Even  Consumption  shall  cease  to  ravage  a  land  that 
enjoys  the  blessings  of  Libert}^  As  this  poem  was  pub- 
lished after  the  September  massacres,  after  Wordsworth 
had  seen  with  his  own  eyes  the  Jacobin  party  locked  in 
a  grip  of  implacable  frenzy  with  the  moderates  of  the 
Assembly,  after  the  King  had  been  executed,  there  can 
be  no  question  of  the  firmness  of  his  republicanism  and 
of  his  nerves.     The  final  apostrophe,  beginning 

Oh  give,  great  God,  to  Freedom's  waves  to  ride 
Sublime  o'er  Conquest,  Avarice,  and  Pride, 

is  feverish  and  almost  incoherent,  but  a  clear  and  un- 
mistakable denunciation  of  the  coalition  of  kings 
against  France  rings  out  in  the  lines : 

And  grant  that  every  sceptred  child  of  clay, 

Who  cries,  presumptuous,  "  here  their  tides  shall  stay," 

Swept  in  their  anger  from  th'  affrighted  shore, 

With  all  his  creatures  sink — to  rise  no  more. 

In  taking  leave  of  this  singular  poem,  let  us  recall  the 
cordial  but  discriminating  words  of  Coleridge  in  the 
"  Biographia  Literaria  ": 

"  During  the  last  year  of  my  residence  at  Cambridge, 
I  became  acquainted  with  Mr.  Wordsworth's  first  publi- 
cations, entitled  Descriptive  Sketches;  and  seldom,  if 
ever,  was  the  emergence  of  an  original  poetic  genius 
above  the  literary  horizon  more  evidently  announced. 
In  the  form,  style,  and  manner  of  the  whole  poem,  and 
in  the  structure  of  the  particular  lines  and  periods,  there 
is  an  harshness  and  an  acerbity  connected  and  com- 
bined with  words  and  images  all  aglow,  which  might 
recall  those  products  of  the  vegetable  world,  where 
gorgeous  blossoms  rise  out  of  the  hard  and  thorny  rind 
and  shell,  within  which  the  rich  fruit  was  elaborating. 
The  language  was  not  only  peculiar  and  strong,  but  at 
times  knotty  and  contorted,  as  by  its  own  impatient 
strength;  while  the  novelty  and  struggling  crowd  of 
images,  acting  in  conjunction  with  the  difficulties  of  the 
style,  demanded  always  a  greater  closeness  of  attention 
than  poetry  (at  all  events,  than  descriptive  poetry)  has  a 
right  to  claim.  It  not  seldom,  therefore,  justified  the 
complaint  of  obscurity." 


1793]  MYSTERIOUS  DISAPPEARANCE  199 

Wordsworth's  life  in  1793  is  shrouded  with  a  degree 
of  mystery  that  is  itself  mysterious.  A  poet  in  his  v 
twenty-fourth  year  is  not  likely  to  live  without  warm 
friends  and  curious  acquaintances,  is  not  likely  to  with- 
draw from  social  scenes  or  to  be  a  niggardly  correspon- 
dent. Yet  not  a  single  letter  of  the  young  republican,' 
dating  from  this  year,  has  ever  been  printed — except  the 
draft  of  a  public  epistle,  which  we  shall  consider  later. 
Four  of  his  sister's  letters  to  Jane  Pollard* — or,  rather, 
fragments  of  them — written  in  this  year  have  been  pub- 
lished, and  in  his  old  age  the  poet  made  a  few  references 
to  this  time  in  notes  to  his  poems.  Evidently  his  rela- 
tives not  only  disapproved  of  him  then,  but  continued 
long  afterwards  to  do  their  utmost  to  cover  with  oblivion 
the  season  of  his  unripeness.  Later,  he  too  joined  the 
conspiracy  against  the  memory  of  his  youthful  self.  It 
has  been  lightly  assumed  that  he  lived  while  in  London 
with  his  brother  Richard,  but  I  know  of  nothing  to 
prove  this.  His  income  could  not  have  been  more  than 
enough  for  a  most  frugal  existence. 

On  Sunday  morning,  June  16,  1793,  his  sister  wrote 
to  Miss  Pollard  :f  "  I  cannot  foresee  the  day  of  my 
felicity,  the  day  on  which  I  am  once  more  to  find  a 
home  under  the  same  roof  as  my  brother.  All  is  still 
obscure  and  dark."  She  pleads  for  sympathy  with  her 
"  little  schemes  of  felicity,"  her  "  scenes  of  happiness, 
happiness  arising  from  the  exercise  of  the  social  affec- 
tions in  retirement  and  rural  quiet."  She  says  she  often 
hears  from  her  dear  brother  William.  "  I  am  very 
anxious  about  him  just  now,"  she  adds,  "  as  he  has  not 
yet  got  an  employment.  He  is  looking  out,  and  wish- 
ing for  the  opportunity  of  engaging  himself  as  tutor  to 
some  young  gentleman,  an  office  for  which  he  is  peculiarly 

*  The  fragments  which  Professor  Knight  prints  as  Letters  XXVI.  and 
XXVII.  in  "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family  "  are  really  parts  of  one 
letter,  and  it  was  of  later  date  than  the  one  printed  as  No.  XXVIII. 
There  is  also  an  unpublished  letter,  of  which  I  have  seen  a  copy.  Mr. 
Gordon  Wordsworth  thinks  it  was  written  at  Forncett  early  in  June,  1793. 
In  it  Dorothy  mentions  her  expectation  of  going  to  Halifax,  and  also  of 
sharing  the  society  of  her  dear  William. 

t  From  the  original,  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Marshall. 


ioo       A  REVOLUTIONIST  IN  ENGLAND     [chap,  rx 

well  qualified.  Oh,  Jane,  the  last  time  we  were  together 
he  won  my  affection  to  a  degree  which  I  cannot  describe, 
his  attentions  to  me  were  such  as  the  most  sensible  of 
mortals  must  have  been  touched  with;  there  was  no 
pleasure  that  he  would  not  have  given  up  with  joy  for 
half  an  hour's  conversation  with  me.  It  was  in  winter 
at  Christmas  that  he  was  last  at  Forncett."  She  de- 
scribes her  joys  on  that  memorable  occasion,  which  was 
at  the  close  of  1 790.  By  her  brother's  advice,  probably, 
and  for  his  sake,  she  is  now  studying  French,  "  fagging 
it  tolerably  hard,"  she  says.  It  is  a  melancholy  fact 
that  not  until  the  next  autumn  or  winter  after  his  return 
from  France  did  he  see  his  adorable  sister.  Her  passion 
fed  on  patience,  which  nourished  it  for  a  sustained  and 
lofty  flight.  It  is  through  her  eyes  chiefly  that  we  see 
him  at  this  time.  Her  anxiety  is  equalled  only  by  her 
confidence.  Does  he  hold  with  those  atrocious  French  ? 
No  truer  Englishman  exists  !  Can  it  be  true  he  is  a 
heretic  ?  Why,  he  is  her  brother  William,  and  the 
I  charge  needs  no  further  refutation  !  Is  he  idle  and  un- 
productive ?  The  finest  and  rarest  qualities,  she  is  cer- 
tain, lie  ready  for  employment  in  his  rich  nature  if  only 
he  has  a  chance  to  teach.  How  eagerly  she  catches  at 
his  assent,  in  the  last  lines  of  "  An  Evening  Walk,"  to 
her  long-cherished  hope  that  they  might  live  together 
in  a  cottage  of  their  own  !  She  even  includes  Miss 
Pollard  in  her  dream  of  felicity : 

"  Why  are  you  not  seated  with  me  ?  and  my  dear 
William,  why  is  he  not  here  also  ?  I  could  almost 
fancy  that  I  see  you  both  near  me.  I  hear  you  point 
out  a  spot  where,  if  we  could  erect  a  little  cottage  and 
call  it  our  own,  we  could  be  the  happiest  of  human 
beings.  I  see  my  brother  fired  with  the  idea  of  leading 
his  sister  to  such  a  retreat  as  I  fancy,  ever  ready  at  our 
call,  hastening  to  assist  us  in  painting.  Our  parlour  is 
in  a  moment  furnished ;  our  garden  is  adorned  by  magic ; 
the  roses  and  honeysuckles  spring  at  our  command;  the 
wood  behind  the  house  lifts  its  head,  furnishing  us  with 
a  winter's  shelter  and  a  summer's  noonday  shade.  My 
dear  friend,  I  trust  that  ere  long  you  will  be,  without 
the  aid  of  imagination,  the  companion  of  my  walks,  and 


1793]       DOROTHY'S  DREAM  OF  FELICITY         201 

my  dear  William  may  be  of  our  party.  He  is  now 
going  upon  a  tour  to  the  West  of  England,  along  with 
a  gentleman  who  was  formerly  a  schoolfellow,  a  man  of 
fortune,  who  is  to  bear  all  the  expense  of  the  journey, 
and  only  requests  the  favour  of  William's  company,  as 
he  is  averse  to  the  idea  of  going  alone.  As  William  has 
not  the  prospect  of  any  immediate  employment,  I  think 
he  cannot  pursue  a  better  scheme.  He  is  perfectly  at 
liberty  to  quit  this  companion  as  soon  as  anything  more 
advantageous  offers." 

Then  she  bursts  into  an  ecstatic  strain,  in  full 
accord  with  her  most  loving  nature,  and  justified,  no 
doubt,  by  qualities  in  her  brother  known  as  yet  to 
her  alone : 

"  But  it  is  enough  to  say  that  I  am  likely  to  have  the 
happiness  of  introducing  you  to  my  beloved  brother. 
You  must  forgive  me  for  talking  so  much  of  him ;  my 
affection  hurries  me  on,  and  makes  me  forget  that  you 
cannot  be  so  much  interested  in  the  subject  as  I  am. 
You  do  not  know  him ;  you  do  not  know  how  amiable 
he  is.  Perhaps  you  reply,  '  But  I  know  how  blinded 
you  are.'  Well,  my  dearest,  I  plead  guilty  at  once;  I 
must  be  blind;  he  cannot  be  so  pleasing  as  my  fondness 
makes  him.  I  am  willing  to  allow  that  half  the  virtues 
with  which  I  fancy  him  endowed  are  the  creation  of  my 
love ;  but  surely  I  may  be  excused  !  He  was  never  tired 
of  comforting  his  sister;  he  never  left  her  in  anger;  he 
always  met  her  with  joy;  he  preferred  her  society  to 
every  other  pleasure — or  rather,  when  we  were  so  happy 
as  to  be  within  each  other's  reach,  he  had  no  pleasure 
when  we  were  compelled  to  be  divided.  Do  not,  then, 
expect  too  much  from  this  brother  of  whom  I  have 
delighted  so  to  talk  to  you.  In  the  first  place,  you  must 
be  with  him  more  than  once  before  he  wall  be  perfectly 
easy  in  conversation.  In  the  second  place,  his  person 
is  not  in  his  favour — at  least,  I  should  think  not;  but  I 
soon  ceased  to  discover  this — nay,  I  almost  thought 
that  the  opinion  which  I  had  formed  was  erroneous 
He  is,  however,  certainly  rather  plain,  though  other- 
wise has  an  extremely  thoughtful  countenance;  but 
when  he  speaks  it  is  often  lighted  up  by  a  smile  which 
I  think  very  pleasing.  But  enough,  he  is  my  brother; 
why  should  I  describe  him  ?  I  shall  be  launching  again 
into  panegyric." 


202       A  REVOLUTIONIST  IN  ENGLAND     [chap,  ix 

She  returns  with  undaunted  persistence  to  her  plans 
for  a  meeting  with  him  :* 

"  My  brother's  tour  will  not  be  completed  till  October, 
at  which  time  they  [i.e.,  William  and  William  Calvert, 
the  young  man  with  whom  he  was  to  travel]  will  per- 
haps make  a  stand  in  North  Wales,  from  whence  he  can 
very  conveniently  take  a  trip  to  Halifax.  It  is  more 
than  two  years  and  a  half  since  we  last  saw  each  other, 
and  so  ardent  is  our  desire  for  a  meeting  that  we  are 
determined  upon  procuring  to  ourselves  this  happiness, 
if  it  were  even  to  be  purchased  at  the  price  of  a  journey 
across  the  kingdom;  but  from  North  Wales  into  York- 
shire the  distance  is  nothing.  If,  therefore,  my  brother 
does  not  meet  with  any  employment  which  is  likely  to 
fix  him  before  I  go  to  Halifax,  we  shall  certainly  meet 
there;  but,  if  he  should  be  engaged,  we  are  determined 
to  see  each  other  at  Forncett. 

Then  she  tells  her  friend,  who,  let  us  hope,  was  as 
discreet  as  Wordsworth's  biographers  have  been,  why 
the  meeting  had  not  taken  place  already  :f 

"  If  my  brother  makes  an  engagement  which  will  take 
him  out  of  England  or  confine  him  to  one  spot  for  any 
length  of  time,  then  he  is  determined  to  come  and  see 
me  at  Forncett,  if  it  be  but  for  a  day,  though  he  has 
never  received  an  invitation  from  my  uncle,  and  though 
he  can  have  no  possible  inducement  but  the  pleasure  of 
seeing  me.  You  must  know  that  this  favourite  brother 
of  mine  happens  to  be  no  favourite  with  any  of  his  near 
relations,  except  his  brothers,  by  whom  he  is  adored — 
I  mean  by  John  and  Christopher,  for  Richard's  disposi- 
tion and  his  are  totally  different,  and  though  they  never 
have  any  quarrels,  yet  there  is  not  that  friendship 
between  them  which  can  only  exist  where  two  hearts 
are  found  to  sympathize  with  each  other  in  all  their 
griefs  and  joys.  I  have  not  time  or  room  to  explain  to 
you  the  foundation  of  the  prejudices  of  my  two  uncles 
against  my  dear  William;  the  subject  is  an  unpleasant 
one  for  a  letter ;  it  will  employ  us  more  agreeably  in  con- 
versation. Then,  though  I  must  confess  that  he  has 
been  somewhat  to  blame,  yet  I  think  I  shall  prove  to 
you  that  the  excuse  might  have  been  found  in  his 
natural  disposition. 

*  From  the  original,  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Marshall.  t  Ibid. 


I793]  REJECTED  BY  HIS  FAMILY  203 

In  truth  he  was  a  strange  and  wayward  wight, 
Fond  of  each  gentle,  etc.,  etc. 

That  verse  of  Beattie's  '  Minstrel  '  always  reminds  me 
of  him,  and  indeed  the  whole  character  of  Edwin 
resembles  much  what  William  was  when  I  first  knew 
him  after  my  leaving  Halifax. 

And  oft  he  traced  the  uplands  to  survey, 
When  o'er  the  sky  advanced  the  kindling  dawn, 
The  crimson  cloud,  blue  main  and  mountain  gray, 
And  lake  dim  gleaming  on  the  dusky  lawn, 
Far  to  the  west  the  long  long  vale  withdrawn. 

I  have  been  much  disappointed  that  my  uncle  has  not 
invited  William  to  Forncett,  but  he  is  no  favourite  with 
him.     Alas  !     Alas  !" 

Was  ever  the  fraternal  relation  endowed  with  more 
romantic  glamour  ?  Was  there  ever  a  more  ardent 
worship  of  a  brother  by  a  sister  ?  It  never  failed,  and 
the  companionship  of  a  lifetime  was  maintained  at  this 
high  pitch,  if  not  of  expression,  yet  of  intense  feeling. 

Her  brother,  in  writing  to  her,  broke  through  the 
formal  style  which  often  served  as  a  necessary  check  to 
the  violence  of  his  emotions.  Dorothy  proudly  tran- 
scribes two  passages  from  his  letters. 

"  The  first,"  she  explains,  "  is  from  the  letter  he  wrote 
in  answer  to  mine,  informing  him  of  my  certainty  of 
visiting  Halifax.  He  says:  '  Now,  my  dearest  friend, 
how  much  do  I  wish  that  each  emotion  of  pleasure  or 
pain  that  visits  your  heart  should  excite  a  similar 
pleasure  or  a  similar  pain  within  me,  by  that  sympathy 
which  will  almost  identify  us  when  we  have  stolen  to 
our  little  cottage.  I  am  determined  to  see  you  as  soon 
as  ever  I  have  entered  into  an  engagement.  Immedi- 
ately I  will  write  to  my  uncle,  and  tell  him  that  I  can- 
not think  of  going  anywhere  before  I  have  been  with 
you.  Whatever  answer  he  gives  me,  I  certainly  will 
make  a  point  of  once  more  mingling  my  transports  with 
yours.  Alas  !  my  dear  sister,  how  soon  must  this  happi- 
ness expire;  yet  there  are  moments  worth  ages.'  .  .  . 
In  another  letter,  in  which  he  informs  me  of  his  inten- 
tion to  accept  his  friend  Calvert's  offer,  he  says,  '  It  will 
be  easy  for  me  to  see  you  at  Halifax.     Oh,  my  dear, 


204       A  REVOLUTIONIST  IN  ENGLAND     [chap  ix 

dear  sister  !  with  what  transport  shall  I  again  meet 
you  !  with  what  rapture  shall  I  again  wear  out  the  day 
in  your  sight  !  So  eager  is  my  desire  to  see  you,  that 
all  obstacles  vanish.  I  see  3^ou  in  a  moment  running, 
or  rather  flying  to  my  arms.'  " 

Wordsworth's  biographers  have  had  little  to  say  about 
the  breach  which  existed  at  this  time  between  him  and 

>  his  uncles.  Professor  Knight,  for  example,  omits  the 
sentence  about  "  obstacles  "  in  the  above  quotation. 
The  facts  appear  to  be,  however,  that  Dr.  Cookson 
refused  to  let  him  visit  Dorothy  at  Forncett,  and  that 
his  supply  of  money  was  so  greatly  reduced  as  to  make 

J  travelling  impossible.  Yet  it  could  not  have  been  only 
lack  of  money  that  kept  him  from  going  to  Forncett  all 
that  year,  to  break  the  cruel  separation,  as  hard  for  him 
probably  as  for  her.  We  must  believe  that  he  was 
denied  admission  to  the  house  that  sheltered  his  beloved 
sister;  hence  the  bitterness  of  her  cry,  so  often  repeated, 
against  the  sad  fate  of  orphans.  Hence,  too,  her  eager 
calculating  of  the  chances  of  obtaining  tardy  justice 
from  the  Earl  of  Lonsdale.  These  expressions  of  long- 
ing, which  I  have  quoted,  these  visions  of  life  in  a 
cottage,  did  not  come  from  a  repining  nature  or  from 
sentimentality ;  they  were  forced  from  her  by  a  sense  of 
injustice  and  of  a  privation  that  was  growing  unbear- 
able. No  help  was  to  be  expected  from  their  elder 
brother,  Richard,  who  was  uncongenial.  The  hope  that 
William  might  be  restored  to  grace  by  entering  the 
-  ministry  had  become  ludicrously  faint.  He  had  almost 
passed  the  point  where  that  suggestion  could  be  made 
again.  She  did  not  even  wish  it  to  be  known  that  she 
was  to  meet  him  at  Halifax. 

Poor  Dorothy's  day  of  felicity  was  not  to  come  quite 
as  soon  as  she  expected.  She  lost  her  purse,  containing 
six  guineas,  which  she  had  saved  for  her  visit  to  Halifax. 
This  was  more  than  made  up,  however,  by  generous 
gifts  from  her  brother  Richard  and  her  uncle  Crackan- 
thorpe,  of  whom  she  now  began  to  entertain  a  better 
opinion,  saying  that  he  had  been  influenced  against  her 
only  by  his  wife,  a  proud  and  selfish  woman.     But  her 


i793]  WANDERINGS  IN  THE  WEST  205 

plan  was  upset  b}r  Calvert's  horse.  It  seems  that  the 
young  men  began  their  journey  late  in  the  summer. 
They  spent  some  months  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  and  were 
probably  at  or  near  Salisbury,  on  their  way  to  Wales, 
when  the  animal  dragged  them  and  their  carriage  into 
a  ditch.  The  vehicle  was  ruined.  Calvert  rode  off 
north  on  the  steed,  and  the  poet,  after  wandering  for 
two  days  over  Salisbury  Plain,  had  no  other  resource 
but  to  hasten  to  the  home  of  his  old  friend  Robert  Jones 
in  North  Wales.  He  went  by  way  of  Bath  and  Bristol 
to  the  banks  of  the  "  silvan  Wye,"  whence  he  proceeded 
on  foot.  It  was  on  this  journey  that  he  met,  within  the 
area  of  Goodrich  Castle,  the  little  girl  whom  he  made 
the  heroine  of  "  We  are  Seven,"  although  he  did  not 
write  the  poem  at  that  time.  Five  years  later  he  passed 
that  way  again,  reposed  under  the  same  "  dark  syca- 
more," saw  again  the  same  hedgerows  and  the  same  t 
farms,  "  green  to  the  very  door."  If  anyone  still  holds  \  -CA/ 
the  view  that  WTordsworth,  for  two  or  three  years  after 
his  return  from  France,  suffered  a  dulling  of  sensibilities, 
an  obscuration  of  spirits,  was  too  sombre,  too  much  I 
absorbed  in  uncongenial  politics  to  feel  the  thrill  of 
nature,  and  that  his  poetic  faculties  were  not  reawakened 
until  the  soothing  influence  of  his  sister  restored  him  to 
a  more  easy-going  frame  of  mind,  to  optimism  and  peace 
— if  anyone  still  holds  this  view,  which  was  set  forth  in 
the  "  Memoirs,"  and  has  been  very  commonly  held,  what 
can  he  say  of  the  passage  in  "  Lines  composed  a  Few 
Miles  above  Tintern  Abbey,"  which  describes,  though 
disclaiming  the  attempt,  what  his  feelings  were  in  1793  ? 

Like  a  roe 
I  bounded  o'er  the  mountains,  by  the  sides 
Of  the  deep  rivers,  and  the  lonely  streams, 
Wherever  nature  led  :  more  like  a  man 
Flying  from  something  that  he  dreads  than  one 
Who  sought  the  thing  he  loved.     For  nature  then 
(The  coarser  pleasures  of  my  boyish  days, 
And  their  glad  animal  movements  all  gone  by) 
To  me  was  all  in  all. — I  cannot  paint 
What  then  I  was.     The  sounding  cataract 
Haunted  me  like  a  passion:  the  tall  rock. 


206       A  REVOLUTIONIST  IN  ENGLAND     [chap,  ix 

The  mountain,  and  the  deep  and  gloomy  wood, 
Their  colours  and  their  forms,  were  then  to  me 
An  appetite ;  a  feeling  and  a  love, 
That  had  no  need  of  a  remoter  charm, 
By  thought  supplied,  nor  any  interest 
Unborrowed  from  the  eye. — That  time  is  passed, 
And  all  its  aching  joys  are  now  no  more, 
And  all  its  dizzy  raptures. 

Yet  it  must  be  admitted  that  these  high  spirits  were  a 
rebound  from  a  state  of  dejection  in  which  he  had  been 
plunged  a  few  days  before.  It  was  on  Salisbury  Plain 
that  he  had  in  part  conceived  the  melancholy  tale  which 
now  bears  the  title  "  Guilt  and  Sorrow."  And  his  sad 
thoughts  there  were  due  to  reflecting  on  the  probable 
mission  of  the  British  fleet  which  he  had  seen  from  the 
Isle  of  Wight.  In  the  Advertisement  prefixed  to  the 
above-mentioned  poem  in  1 842  he  wrote : 

"During  the  latter  part  of  the  summer  of  1793, 
having  passed  a  month  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  in  view  of 
the  fleet  which  was  then  preparing  for  sea  off  Ports- 
mouth at  the  commencement  of  the  war,  I  left  the  place 
with  melancholy  forebodings.  The  American  war  was 
still  fresh  in  memory.  The  struggle  which  was  be- 
ginning, and  which  many  thought  would  be  brought  to 
a  speedy  close  by  the  irresistible  arms  of  Great  Britain 
being  added  to  those  of  the  allies,  I  was  assured  in  my 
own  mind  would  be  of  long  continuance,  and  productive 
of  distress  and  misery  beyond  all  possible  calculation. 
This  conviction  was  pressed  upon  me  from  having  been 
a  witness,  during  a  long  residence  in  revolutionary 
France,  of  the  spirit  which  prevailed  in  that  country." 

Far  less  cautious  is  his  language  in  "  The  Prelude," 
which  was  written  much  earlier,  and  reproduces  more 
faithfully  his  original  emotion  :* 

When  the  proud  fleet  that  bears  the  red-cross  flag 

In  that  unworthy  service  was  prepared 

To  mingle,  I  beheld  the  vessels  lie, 

A  brood  of  gallant  creatures,  on  the  deep ; 

I  saw  them  in  their  rest,  a  sojourner 

Through  a  whole  month  of  calm  and  glassy  days 

In  that  delightful  island  which  protects 

*  "  Prelude,"  X.  314. 


i793]  OPPOSED  TO  THE  WAR  207 

Their  place  of  convocation — there  I  heard, 

Each  evening,  pacing  by  the  still  sea-shore, 

A  monitory  sound  that  never  failed, — 

The  sunset  cannon.     While  the  orb  went  down 

In  the  tranquillity  of  nature,  came 

That  voice,  ill  requiem  !  seldom  heard  by  me 

Without  a  spirit  overcast  by  dark 

Imaginations,  sense  of  woes  to  come, 

Sorrow  for  humankind,  and  pain  of  heart. 

The  joy  with  which  he  took  refuge  in  nature's  bosom,./ 
when  he  found  himself  alone  and  far  from  every  sugges- 
tion of  discord,  on  the  banks  of  the  sweet  inland  river, 
contrasted  strongly  with  the  civic  care  which  had  op- 
pressed him  ever  since  his  return  from  France.  He  had 
come  home,  "  a  patriot  of  the  world."  Rural  England, 
erewhile,  he  tells  us,  his  "  tuneful  haunt,"  seemed  un- 
suited  to  his  mood.  He  felt  more  in  harmony  with  the 
general  stir  of  the  great  city,  where  public  questions 
were  in  the  air.  And  though  he  took  but  a  languid 
interest  in  the  anti-slavery  movement,  which  was  then 
receiving  one  of  those  checks  that  only  served  to  in- 
crease the  zeal  of  its  friends,  this  indifference  was  due 
to  his  conviction  that  if  the  French  Revolution  pros- 
pered, slavery,  that  "  most  rotten  branch  of  human 
shame,"  would  vanish  with  a  host  of  other  evils.*  As 
high  as  was  his  trust,  so  low  was  his  despair,  when  his 
own  country,  which  he  had  heard  Frenchmen  praise  for 
her  love  of  liberty,  declared  war  upon  the  land  of  his 
hopes : 

What,  then,  were  my  emotions,  when  in  arms 
Britain  put  forth  her  free-born  strength  in  league, 
Oh,  pity  and  shame  !  with  those  confederate  Powers  ! 

His  moral  nature,  he  says,  had  received  no  shock  down 
to  that  very  moment.  All  else  had  been  progress;  this 
was  revolution.  The  order  of  his  attachments  was  in- 
verted.    Old  loyalty  to  native  land,  instead  of  becoming 

*  His  sister's  interest  was  very  keen.  She  sent  a  message  to  Jane 
Pollard's  father,  asking  him  to  vote  for  Wilberforce,  and  wrote  to  her 
friend:  "  I  hope  you  were  an  Immediate  Abolitionist,  and  are  angry  with 
the  House  of  Commons  for  continuing  the  traffic  in  human  flesh  so  long 
as  till  '96,  but  you  will  rejoice  also  that  so  much  has  been  done.  I  hate 
Mr.  Dundas." 


208       A  REVOLUTIONIST  IN  ENGLAND     [chap,  ix 

merged  in  a  more  comprehensive  allegiance  to  human 
welfare,  was  found  to  be  a  principle  of  evil.  In  what 
must  have  been  the  bitterest  sort  of  triumph  he  rejoiced, 
"  yea,  exulted,"  he  tells  us,  when  Englishmen  were  over- 
thrown by  thousands,  left  without  glory  on  the  field,  or 
driven  to  shameful  flight.  When  in  church  prayers  were 
offered  up  or  praises  for  English  victories,  he  sat  silent, 
and 

Fed  on  the  day  of  vengeance  yet  to  come. 

This  is  a  state  of  mind  to  which  the  best  of  men  have 
been  driven,  and  will,  with  the  advance  of  civilization, 
be  more  frequently  driven,  when  placed  in  a  similar 
plight.  Accustomed  to  nourish  their  patriotism  on 
hopes  of  peace,  justice,  and  mercy,  they  feel  only  dis- 
appointment and  dismay  when  their  country  takes  what 
they  regard  as  a  backward  step.  The  excitations  to  war, 
which  awaken  what  the  multitudes  call  patriotism,  put 
their  love  of  country  to  the  severest  strain.  Nowhere 
shall  we  find  a  more  vivid  account  of  the  moral  distress 
which  the  minority  have  to  endure  when  their  country, 
against  their  principles,  goes  to  arms,  than  the  one 
Wordsworth  wrote  in  the  tenth  book  of  "  The  Prelude  "  :* 

Oh  !  much  have  they  to  account  for,  who  could  tear 
By  violence,  at  one  decisive  rent, 
From  the  best  youth  in  England  their  dear  pride, 
Their  joy,  in  England. 

And  this,  too,  he  says,  at  a  time 

In  which  apostasy  from  ancient  faith 
Seemed  but  conversion  to  a  higher  creed. 

*  As  news  came  from  France,  bad  enough  in  itself,  and 
always  rendered  more  fearful  in  the  telling,  his  spirits 
drooped,  and  he  was  obliged  to  use  all  his  philosophy  to 
maintain  the  wider  outlook.  How  much  easier  it  would 
have  been  to  accept  the  popular  and  national  prejudice, 
to  admit  that  his  hopes  in  man  had  been  vain,  to  let  his 
heart  beat  with  the  fever  of  warlike  passion  !  The 
awful  months  of  the  Terror  brought  almost  nothing  but 
disheartening  stories.     Here  and   there,  it  is   true,  he 

*   "  Prelude,"  X.  299. 


1793I  THE  TERROR  209 

culled  eagerly  a  tale  of  heroism,  some  witness  that  even 
the  victims  of  Jacobin  fury  preserved  to  the  end  their 
trust  in  the  Republic.     He  treasured  the  last  words  of 
Madame  Roland.     After  the  expulsion  of  his  friends,  the 
Girondists,    from    the    Convention,    accounts    of    their 
deaths,  one  by  one,  reached  him  either  through  the 
newspapers  or  through  private  letters  ;*  and  few,  if  any, 
of  them  renounced  their  faith  in  republican  principles. 
Here  was  some  consolation.     He  must  have  shared  the   1 
view  of  all  competent  French  observers,  that  the  Jacobins  /  / 
derived  their  direful  power  from  public  fear  of  the  coali- . 
tion.     Thus  he  must  have  held  England  in  part  respon-  \  y 
sible  for  their  atrocities.     Deep  as  was  his  horror  for^ 
the   fanatics   in    Paris,    he   hated    bitterly    the   foreign/ 
enemies  of  France  :f 

It  was  a  lamentable  time  for  man, 

Whether  a  hope  had  e'er  been  his  or  not; 

A  woeful  time  for  them  whose  hopes  survived 

The  shock;  most  woeful  for  those  few  who  still 

Were  flattered,  and  had  trust  in  human  kind : 

They  had  the  deepest  feeling  of  the  grief. 

Meanwhile  the  Invaders  fared  as  they  deserved : 

The  Herculean  Commonwealth  had  put  forth  her  arms, 

And  throttled  with  an  infant  godhead's  might 

The  snakes  about  her  cradle ;  that  was  well, 

And  as  it  should  be;  yet  no  cure  for  them 

Whose  souls  were  dick  with  pain  of  what  would  be 

Hereafter  brought  in  charge  against  mankind. 

*  As  we  shall  see  later,  Thomas  Carlyle,  in  his  "  Reminiscences,"  says 
that  Wordsworth  told  him,  about  1840,  that  he  had  witnessed  the  execu- 
tion of  Gorsas,  which  took  place  October  7,  1793.  If  this  statement  is 
correct,  we  must  suppose  that  the  poet  returned  to  France  after  the  war 
was  declared,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  Terror.  We  should  guard  against 
placing  too  much  trust  in  this  anecdote,  for  Carlyle  may  have  misunder- 
stood him,  though  no  man  could  have  been  more  alert  for  such  informa- 
tion than  the  author  of  the  "  French  Revolution  ";  yet,  if  true,  it  would 
agree  with  many  things,  among  them  Wordsworth's  statement  that  he 
spent  fourteen  or  fifteen  months  in  France  after  his  arrival  there  in  the 
autumn  of  179,1,  and  his  account  of  his  dreams  of  arrests,  executions,  and 
heart-rending  farewells.  The  excited  tone  of  the  tenth  book  of  "  The 
Prelude,"  and  many  allusions  in  Dorothy's  letters  and  journals  in  aftei- 
years,  would  be  easier  to  understand  if  we  admitted  a  short  visit  to  France 
in  1793-  The  motives  for  his  concealing  the  fact  have  been  already 
indicated. 

t  "  Prelude,"  X.  384- 

I.  M 


210       A  REVOLUTIONIST  IN  ENGLAND     [chap,  is 

It  is  worth  while  to  observe  that  his  satisfaction  in  the 
defeat  of  the  Allies  continued  at  least  so  late  as  1805, 
when  the  tenth  book  of  "  The  Prelude  "  was  written, 
and  that  he  never  afterwards  saw  fit  to  alter  these  words. 
» /  .  His  sufferings  were  intense  and  protracted.  His  days 
,-/were  melancholy,  his  nights  miserable.  For  months  and 
years  after  that  fatal  summer  and  autumn  he  rarely 
slept  without  seeing  horrible  visions,  of  victims  on  the 
scaffold  and  of  dungeons  "  where  the  dust  was  laid  with 
tears."  In  his  dreams  he  was  entangled  in  long  orations, 
striving  to  clear  himself  before  unjust  tribunals,  and 
treacherously  deserted.  The  stage  of  these  horrid  scenes 
was  familiar  to  him.  He  had  known  some  of  the  actors. 
His  hallucinations  were  echoes  of  the  dreadful  night  he 
+.  -spent  in  Paris  a  year  before.  The  gentle  forms  of  nature 
had  won  his  worship  in  boyhood.  Now  pity  and  sorrow, 
the  handmaids  of  his  second  love,  the  love  of  man, 
exacted  a  "  different  ritual  " — tears  and  groans  and 
ghastly  dreams.  For  consolation  there  came  to  him,  he 
reverently  dared  to  think,  something  like  the  spirit  that 
must  have  supported  the  ancient  prophets  when  they 
denounced  the  doom  of  God  upon  a  guilty  city.  It  was 
the  thought  that  nature  was  not  to  blame,  that  the 
ideals  of  democracy  were  not  to  blame:* 

When  a  taunt 
Was  taken  up  by  scoffers  in  their  pride, 
Saying,  "  Behold  the  harvest  that  we  reap 
From  popular  government  and  equality," 
I  clearly  saw  that  neither  these  nor  aught 
Of  wild  belief  engrafted  on  their  names 
By  false  philosophy  had  caused  the  woe, 
But  a  terrific  reservoir  of  guilt 
And  ignorance  filled  up  from  age  to  age, 
That  could  no  longer  hold  its  loathsome  charge, 
But  burst  and  spread  in  deluge  through  the  land. 

]  Thus  unshaken  in  the  citadel  of  his  faith,  though  sorely 
harassed  in  the  outworks  of  social  relations  and  practical 
life,  he  came  through  that  most  trying  year.! 

He  was  not  by  any  means  the  only  person  in  England 
who  was  perplexed  by  the  conflict  of  loyalties.     Many 

*  "  Prelude,"  X.  469. 


17931  DIVIDED  LOYALTY  211 

were  afflicted,  though  none  perhaps  so  acutely  as  he 
was,  partly  because  of  his  fine  sensibilities,  and  partly  be- 
cause he  had  left  his  heart  behind  in  France.  History  has 
scarcely  done  justice  to  the  depth  and  extent  of  the  moral 
support  which  the  Revolutionary  movement  received  in 
Great  Britain  between  the  opening  of  the  American  War 
and  the  proclamation  of  the  French  Empire  in  1804, 
and  especially  between  1789  and  1794.  Lost  causes  are 
too  soon  forgotten,  though  sometimes  the  strongest 
threads  in  the  web  of  life  are  those  that  lie  unseen  below 
the  surface.  It  has  been  the  fashion,  and  in  some 
respects  it  is  a  good  fashion,  to  glorify  Burke  and  Pitt. 
They,  with  Nelson  and  Wellington,  are  the  grand  figures 
of  the  tapestry.  But  when  they  have  received  all  the 
admiration  that  has  been  bestowed  upon  them,  it  is  still 
necessary  to  turn  the  fabric  round,  and  look  at  the  sup- 
pressed weaving  on  the  other  side,  if  we  would  really 
know  the  whole  truth.  There  can  hardly  be  any  doubt 
now  that  at  the  opening  of  the  war  with  France  English- 
men of  finest  sympathies  and  clearest  reason  were  for 
the  most  part  opposed  to  the  action  of  their  govern- 
ment. Some  were  theoretical  republicans,  others  merely 
liberal,  others  opposed  to  war  on  any  account.  It  is 
not  surprising  that  popular  prejudice  in  war-time  nick- 
named them  all  Jacobins. 

Wordsworth's   connection   with   the   English   "  Jaco- 
bins," with  the  most  extreme  element  opposed  to  the 
war  and  actively  agitating  in  favour  of  making  England  ■ 
a  republic,  was  much  closer  than  has  been  generally  j 
admitted.     In  the  first  place,  he  appears  to  have  asso- 
ciated himself  very  soon  after  his  return  from  France,/ 
with  other  young  men  of  radical  opinions.     We  have  \ 
hint  of  this  in  "  The  Prelude,"  when,  referring  to  the 
declaration  of  war,  he  says  : 

Not  in  my  single  self  alone  I  found, 

But  in  the  minds  of  all  ingenuous  youth, 

Change  and  subversion  from  that  hour. 

It  is  not  without  significance  that  "  An  Evening  Walk  "   / 
and  "  Descriptive  Sketches  "  should  have  been  printed 


212       A  REVOLUTIONIST  IN  ENGLAND     [chap,  ix 

for  Joseph  Johnson.  He  was  the  publisher  of  Dr. 
;Priestley,  Home  Tooke,  and  Mary  Wollstonecraft.  His 
shop  was  a  favourite  meeting-place  of  republicans  and 
free-thinkers.  Paine  and  Godwin  frequented  it,  and 
so,  for  a  time,  did  Wiliam  Blake,  though  his  religious 
persuasions  were  of  a  very  different  nature  from  theirs. 
Johnson  published  The  Analytical  Review,  which  had 
been  founded  in  1 788.  He  was  hospitable  and  generous, 
a  man  of  broad  literary  culture  and  philanthropic  views. 
Wordsworth  almost  certainly  met  Godwin  and  Home 
J  Tooke  at  Johnson's  table  or  in  his  shop. 

Very  likely  he  met  there,  too,  a  former  fellow  of  Jesus 
College,  Cambridge,  the  Rev.  Gilbert  Wakefield.  He  was 
a  man  distinguished  for  classical  scholarship,  a  not  un- 
worthy antagonist  of  Porson,  and  the  very  incarnation 
of  radicalism.  The  one  mistake  of  his  life,  as  he  thought, 
was  entering  the  ministry  of  the  Church  of  England. 
He  soon  rectified  it  by  becoming  a  Unitarian  and 
vacating  his  college  fellowship  in  1779.  He  connected 
himself  with  no  second  religious  body,  for  he  disapproved 
of  public  worship,  an  attitude  which  he  defended  in  a 
tract,  which  became  the  parent  of  many  others.  He 
was  associated  with  Dr.  Priestley  and  John  Aikin  as  a 
teacher  in  Warrington  Academy,  a  school  founded  on 
liberal  religious  and  political  principles.  It  would  almost 
seem  as  if  none  but  heretics  at  that  time  felt  the  incon- 
sistency between  war  and  Christianity.  War  in  general 
and  the  war  against  France  in  particular,  were,  with 
cruelty  of  every  kind,  the  objects  of  vVakefield's  de- 
testation. His  "  Enquiry  into  the  Expediency  and 
Propriety  of  Public  and  Social  Worship,"  appearing  in 
1 79 1,  made  him  a  broad  mark  for  suspicion,  and  a  few 
years  later  he  and  Johnson,  his  publisher,  were  prose- 
cuted and  convicted  on  account  of  an  attack  he  made 
on  Pitt's  conduct  of  the  government.  Wakefield  was 
sent  to  gaol  for  two  years,  where  he  was  comforted  by 
the  friendship  of  Fox  and  many  other  eminent  men, 
who  raised  a  large  subscription  for  his  family.  He 
survived  his  imprisonment  only  a  few  months,  dying  of 
typhus  fever  in  1801.     Johnson  was  sentenced  to  nine 


i793]  THE  ENGLISH  JACOBINS  213 

months'  imprisonment,  and  to  pay  a  fine  of  fifty  pounds. 
Wakefield's  former  associate,  John  Aikin,  M.D.,  had 
removed  to  London  in  1 792,  having  lost  his  medical  prac- 
tice at  Yarmouth  in  consequence  of  writing  pamphlets 
against  the  Corporation  and  Tests  Acts  and  in  favour  of 
Dissent  and  political  reform.  It  was  Aikin  who  declared 
that,  although  he  had  no  idea  of  becoming  "  the  hero  of 
a  cause,  yet  at  his  age  it  would  be  trifling  not  to  have  a 
character,  and  cowardly  not  to  avow  and  stick  to  it." 

Dr.  Priestley's  house  in  Birmingham  had  been  burned 
in  1 79 1,  with  his  manuscripts  and  scientific  instruments, 
by  a  mob  which  was  notoriously  incited  to  violence  by 
respectable  "  Church  and  King  "  people.  His  opposition 
to  the  war  was,  more  directly  than  his  Unitarianism, 
the  cause  of  his  unpopularity.  He  had  been  elected  a 
citizen  of  the  French  Republic,  and  was  outspoken  in 
its  favour.  After  he  was  driven  from  Birmingham, 
and  before  he  took  refuge  in  Pennsylvania,  he  was 
bold  enough  to  live  for  three  years  in  London,  and 
what  would  be  more  likely  than  that  Wordsworth  /  < 
should  meet  him  at  their  publisher's?*  At  all  events,  •/ 
whether  he  knew  these  men  or  not,  Wordsworth  agreed 
with  them  in  politics,  and  probably  also  in  religion^ 
That  he  suffered  some  of  the  social  ostracism  which  wa 
the  common  portion  of  the  so-called  English  Jacobins 
has  already  been  shown.  He  engaged  also  in  the  same 
kind  of  work  which  occupied  them — the  writing  of  tracts 
or  pamphlets. 

Nothing  outside  of  "  The  Prelude  "  throws  more 
light  on  Wordsworth's  character  and  the  convictions 
of  his  early  manhood  than  a  paper  he  wrote  in  reply  to 
an  attack  upon  the  principles  of  the  French  Revolution, 
published  by  a  celebrated  Church  dignitary,  Richard 
Watson,  Bishop  of  Llandaff.  This  versatile  and  inter- 
esting man  had  become  a  conspicuous  figure  in  public 
life.  With  only  a  few  months'  preparation,  he  had 
fitted  himself  for  a  professorship  of  chemistry  at  Cam- 
bridge, and   actually  made  important  discoveries  and 

*   Dorothy  Wordsworth,  I   have  been  told,   was  acquainted   with  the 
Priestley  family,  and  visited  them. 


214       A  REVOLUTIONIST  IN  ENGLAND     [chap,  ix 

wrote  valuable  scientific  treatises.  With  equal  buoy- 
ancy he  returned  to  theology  when  the  Regius  Professor- 
ship of  Divinity  fell  vacant.  He  was  well  known  as  a 
/  broad-minded  prelate,  favourable  to  liberal  government, 
and  courteous  even  in  theological  controversy.  He 
was  an  eminently  successful  man,  and  the  measure  of 
the  sacrifice  made  for  principle  by  Gilbert  Wakefield,  a 
no  less  able  scholar,  is  shown  in  the  contrast  between  his 
poverty  and  persecutions  and  the  Bishop's  many  rich 
livings.  Early  in  1793  Bishop  Watson  published  a 
sermon  he  had  preached  a  long  while  before,  on  "  The 
Wisdom  and  Goodness  of  God  in  having  made  both 
Rich  and  Poor,"  drawing  consolation — for  the  rich — 
from  the  text:  "  The  rich  and  poor  meet  together;  the 
Lord  is  the  Maker  of  them  all."  He  had  been  moved 
to  prescribe  this  anodyne  to  the  sufferings  of  the  people 
because  he  observed  a  spirit  of  unrest  among  them  and 
of  unwillingness  to  engage  in  a  war,  the  burden  of  which 
would,  as  usual,  fall  most  heavily  upon  the  labouring 
class.  Without  exhibiting  so  much  romantic  sensi- 
bility at  the  execution  of  Louis  XVI.  as  Burke  was  to 
display,  he  still  was  shocked  at  that  event,  and,  writing 
a  political  appendix  to  his  sermon,  dated  four  days  after 
the  fatal  21st  of  January,  had  them  printed  together. 
The  appendix  is  a  defence  of  the  British  Constitution, 
with  strictures  on  French  affairs.  "  I  have  no  hesita- 
tion," he  says,  "  in  declaring  that  the  object  which  the 
French  seemed  to  have  in  view  at  the  commencement 
of  their  revolution  had  my  hearty  approbation."  And 
in  this  statement  he  does  himself  no  more  than  justice, 
for  on  October  12,  1791,  he  had  written  to  the  Duke  of 
Grafton  :* 

"  No  history,  ancient  or  modern,  furnishes  an  example 
similar  to  what  has  happened  in  France;  an  example  of 
a  whole  people  (the  exceptions  are  not  worthy  of  notice) 
divesting  themselves  of  the  prejudices  of  birth  and 
education,  in  civil  and  religious  concerns,  and  adopting 
the  principles  of  philosophy  and  good  sense.   .  .  .     Not- 

*   See  "  Anecdotes  of  the  Life  of  Richard  Watson,  written  by  Himself," 


i793]  BISHOP  WATSON'S  ATTACK  215 

withstanding  all  the  ridicule  which  apostate  Whigs  have 
attempted  to  throw  on  the  rights  of  man,  such  rights 
are  founded  in  nature;  they  exist  antecedent  to  and 
independent  of  civil  society ;  and  the  French  constitution 
is  the  only  one  in  the  world  which  has  deliberately  asserted 
these  rights,  and  supported  them  to  their  full  extent." 

Moreover,  in  the  autumn  of  T792,  after  Louis  XVI. 
had  been  dethroned  and  imprisoned  in  the  Temple, 
Bishop  Watson  had  written  to  Earl  Stanhope,  who 
possessed  much  influence  in  France,  suggesting  that  he 
should  propose  to  the  National  Assembly  a  means  of 
"  establishing  their  new  republic  on  a  solid  foundation  " 
— namely,  by  assigning  to  the  King  one  of  his  palaces 
for  a  residence,  with  a  large  pension,  subject  to  for- 
feiture on  any  act  of  treason  against  the  State.  It  was 
not  merely  the  events  of  the  succeeding  three  months 
in  France,  culminating  in  the  execution  of  a  monarch, 
wicked  as  that  act  appeared  to  the  Bishop,  which  made 
him  change  his  tone.  He  was  sophistical  enough  to 
feel  justified  in  using  a  different  language  in  a  public 
address.  He  aimed  at  the  popular  ear,  and  adapted  his 
methods  accordingly.  Furthermore,  he  was  not  in- 
capable of  flattering  George  III.  by  coming  out  roundly, 
Whig  as  he  was,  in  favour  of  ideas  which  the  Tories,  if 
they  did  not  possess  them  exclusively,  at  least  were 
loudest  in  uttering.  He  tells  us  himself  that  the  King 
complimented  him  in  the  warmest  terms  "  on  the  con- 
ciseness, clearness,  and  utility  of  this  little  publication  "; 
and  gives  us  reason,  from  the  following  incident,  to 
doubt  whether  his  motives  were  altogether  disinterested : 
"  On  this  occasion,  when  the  King  was  praising  what  I 
had  written,  I  said  to  him, '  I  love  to  come  forward  in  a 
moment  of  danger.'  His  reply  was  so  quick  and  proper 
that  I  will  put  it  down, '  I  see  you  do,  and  it  is  a  mark 
of  a  man  of  high  spirit.'  " 

The  chief  points  in  the  Bishop's  exhortation  are  as  ' 
follows:  He  declares  that  a  republic  is  of  all  forms  of 
government  the  one  he  most  dislikes,  because  it  is  most 
oppressive  to  the  bulk  of  the  people,  who  live  in  it  under 
the   tyranny   of  their  equals.     He  is  shocked   beyond 


216       A  REVOLUTIONIST  IN  ENGLAND     [chap,  ix 

coherent  utterance  by  the  execution  of  a  king.  He 
maintains  that  the  greatest  freedom  that  can  be  enjoyed 
by  man  in  a  state  of  civil  society  is  afforded  to  every 
'individual  by  the  British  Constitution.  He  argues,  on 
■grounds  of  expedience,  in  favour  of  monarchy.  He 
defends  aristocratic  institutions.  He  deprecates  the 
■jise  of  the  Press  "  when  employed  to  infuse  into  the 
minds  of  the  lowest  orders  of  the  community  disparaging 
ideas  concerning  the  constitution  of  their  country." 
Failing  utterly  to  perceive  that  the  doctrine  of  equality 
means  equality  of  opportunity  and  absence  of  privilege, 
and  not  merely  equality  before  the  law,  he  wanders  off 
into  platitudes  about  equal  division  of  land,  the  poor 
laws,  and  the  charity  of  the  rich.  The  poor  are  not  so 
very  badly  off,  he  thinks,  and  there  are  hospitals,  relief 
funds,  etc.,  which  would  not  exist  if  all  men  were  on  a 
level. 

Wordsworth,  who  appears  to  have  been  acquainted 
with  Bishop  Watson's  previous  character  for  liberal 
-  views,  felt  the  unpleasant  inconsistency  between  that 
character  and  the  spirit  of  this  pamphlet.  Coming 
home  from  France  full  of  the  importance  of  the  struggle 
there  going  on,  and  impressed  with  the  high  principles 
which  animated  not  only  the  best,  but  some  of  the  most 
extreme  and  dangerous  Revolutionists,  he  resolved  to 
lose  no  time  before  following  the  example  of  Beaupuy 
and  "  performing  the  oath  of  his  apostleship."  The 
English  in  general  appeared  to  him  sunk  in  apathy.  If 
'he  could  not  sacrifice  himself  with  his  Girondist  friends 
in  France,  he  could  at  least  join  the  little  band  of  English 
martyrs.  He  wrote  a  long  reply  to  Bishop  Watson, 
which  was  found  among  his  papers  after  his  death,  but 
seems  never  to  have  printed  during  his  life.*  I  doubt 
if  he  even  sent  a  copy  of  it  to  the  Bishop,  who  makes  no 
mention  of  such  a  letter  in  his  ' '  Anecdotes . ' '  The  manu- 
script is  carefully  written  in  Wordsworth's  own  hand, 
and  the  title  he  prefixed  to  it  is,  "A  Letter  to  the  Bishop 

*  It  was  barely  mentioned  by  his  nephew,  in  the  "  Memoirs,"  Vol.  I., 
p.  78,  and  was  published  for  the  first  time  by  Grosart,  in  1876.  I  have  not 
seen  the  manuscript,  and  must  depend  on  Grosart's  description  of  it. 


i793]  REPLY  TO  BISHOP  WATSON  217 

of  Llandaff  on  the  Extraordinary  Avowal  of  his  Political 
Opinions,  contained  in  the  Appendix  to  his  late  Sermon : 
by  a  Republican."  There  is  no  date.  Considering  that 
it  was  written  by  a  young  man  of  twenty-three,  or  even 
making  no  such  allowance,  this  tract  deserves  to  rank 
with  the  writings  of  Burke,  Paine,  and  Mackintosh,  as 
one  of  the  most  philosophical  treatises  occasioned  in 
England  by  the  Revolutionary  movement.  It  goes  as 
far  below  the  surface  of  human  nature  as  Burke's 
"  Reflections,"  and  is  only  less  eloquent  than  that 
great  work.  "  The  Age  of  Reason  "  is  scarcely  more 
pungent  and  audacious,  and  Mackintosh's  "  Vindiciae 
Gallicae  "  is  far  less  vigorous.  From  the  point  of  view 
of  immediate  public  benefit,  it  is  a  pity  it  was  not 
printed  and  widely  circulated  as  a  counterblast,  not  only 
to  Bishop  Watson,  but  to  Burke.  What  the  effect  upon 
Wordsworth's  career  of  such  an  overt  step  would  have 
been  may  be  easily  conjectured.  The  slow  ripening  of 
the  next  ten  years  would  have  been  rendered  impossible. 
He  would  have  been  hurried  by  the  pressure  of  outside 
opinion  into  positions  from  which  he  could  hardly  have 
retired  by  the  aid  of  reason  and  feeling  alone.  The 
violence  of  his  passionate  nature  would  have  been  let 
loose.  His  reserve  would  have  been  broken,  his  pride 
offended,  his  independence  lost. 

The  letter  begins  with  a  bitter  charge  of  apostasy ; l 
"  the  levelling  prelate,  Bishop  of  the  Dissenters,"  has 
fallen  into  ignominy:  "  While,  with  a  servility  which  has 
prejudiced  many  people  against  religion  itself,  the 
ministers  of  the  Church  of  England  have  appeared  as 
writers  upon  public  measures  only  to  be  the  advocates 
of  slavery,  civil  and  religious,  your  Lordship  stood 
almost  alone  as  the  defender  of  truth  and  political 
charity."  The  young  author  avows  that  his  own  spirit 
will  not  meet  with  the  Bishop's  approval,  "  for  it  is  a 
republican  spirit."  He  confesses  that  he  is  little  / 
touched  by  the  death  of  Louis  XVI.,  of  whose  guilt  he 
is  fully  persuaded.  In  stern  and  judicial  terms,  which 
contrast  boldly  with  the  misplaced  pathos  of  Burke,  he 
says:  "  At  a  period  big  with  the  fate  of  the  human  race 


218       A  REVOLUTIONIST  IN  ENGLAND     [chap,  ix 

I  am  sony  that  you  attach  so  much  importance  to  the 
personal  sufferings  of  the  late  royal  martyr,  and  that 
an  anxiety  for  the  issue  of  the  present  convulsions  should 
not  have  prevented  you  from  joining  in  the  idle  cry  of 
modish  lamentation  which  has  resounded  from  the  Court 
to  the  cottage."     He  himself  regrets  that  sombre  event 
only  because  it  took  place  without  regular  legal  process, 
V    and  because  the  poor  King,  by  the  nature  of  his  un- 
natural   position    above    other    men,    had    been   "  pre- 
cluded from  attaining  even  a  moderate  knowledge  of 
common  life,  and  from  feeling  a  particular  share  in  the 
interests  of  mankind.  .  .  .     Any  other  sorrow  for  the 
death  of  Louis  is  irrational  and  weak."     He  even  ex- 
cuses,   or    explains,    the    other    executions    which    had 
^Shocked  Watson,  by  asserting  that  Liberty  is  unfortu- 
/nately  "  obliged  to  borrow  the  very  arms  of  Despotism 
I  to  overthrow  him,  and,  in  order  to  reign  in  peace,  must 
\establish    herself   by    violence."     "  She    deplores    such 
stern  necessity,"  he  continues,  in  a  sentence  which  might 
have  been  borrowed  from  Robespierre,  "  but  the  safety 
of  the  people,  her  supreme  law,  is  her  consolation." 

He  defends  the  appropriation  of  Church  property  by 
the  French  nation,  charging  the  higher  clergy  with  vice, 
jobbery,  and  hypocrisy.  "  Your  sorrow,"  he  says, 
'Vfor  these  individuals  will  be  diminished  by  recollecting 
the  unworthy  motives  which  induced  the  bulk  of  them 
to  undertake  the  office,  and  the  scandalous  arts  which 
enabled  so  many  to  attain  the  rank  and  enormous  wealth 
which  it  has  seemed  necessary  to  annex  to  the  charge 
of  a  Christian  pastor."  Then,  beginning  to  argue  on 
the  main  subject,  the  superiority  of  an  equalitarian 
republic  over  a  monarchy  and  a  system  of  privilege,  he 
indulges  in  much  strong  and  sarcastic  language.  "  Re- 
lying upon  the  temper  of  the  times,  you  have  surely 
thought  little  argument  necessary  to  contest  what  few 
will  be  hardy  enough  to  support;  the  strongest  of 
auxiliaries,  imprisonment  and  the  pillory,  has  left  your 
arm  little  to  perforin."  Curiously  modern  is  his  ex- 
position of  the  principles  of  the  referendum,  but  his  dis- 
trust  of    long   terms   of  office   brings   us   back   to   the 


/, 


V 


y 


1793]  A  PLEA  FOR  THE  POOR  219 

eighteenth  century.  He  declares  that  the  popular  mind 
is  being  debauched  in  favour  of  the  present  policy  of 
the  British  government.  "  Left  to  the  quiet  exercise 
of  their  own  judgment,  do  you  think  that  the  people 
would  have  thought  it  necessary  to  set  fire  to  the  house 
of  the  philosophic  Priestley,  and  to  hunt  down  his  life 
like  that  of  a  traitor  or  a  parricide  ?  that,  deprived 
almost  of  the  necessaries  of  existence  by  the  burden  of 
their  taxes,  they  would  cry  out,  as  with  one  voice,  for 
a  war  from  which  not  a  single  ray  of  consolation  can 
visit  them  to  compensate  for  the  additional  keenness 
with  which  they  are  about  to  smart  under  the  scourge 
of  labour,  of  cold,  and  of  hunger  ?"  He  attacks  the 
British  penal  code,  pleads  in  favour  of  giving  much 
executive  power  to  the  legislature,  condemns  the  heredi- 
tary principle,  and,  in  a  sentence  which  might  be  taken 
as  a  summary  of  Shakespeare's  English  history-plays, 
declares:  "  The  office  of  kings  is  a  trial  to  which  human 
virtue  is  not  equal."  A  legislator,  he  says,  being  aware 
"  that  the  extremes  of  poverty  and  riches  have  a  neces- 
sary tendency  to  corrupt  the  human  heart,  will  banish 
from  his  code  all  laws  such  as  the  unnatural  monster  of 
primogeniture,"  and  such  as  encourage  associations 
against  labour,  and,  indeed,  all  monopolies  and  distinc- 
tions unfavourable  to  the  poor.  He  makes  the  very 
keen  observation  that  law-makers  "  have  unjustly  left 
unprotected  that  most  important  part  of  property,  not 
less  real  because  it  has  no  material  existence,  that 
which  ought  to  enable  the  labourer  to  provide  food  for 
himself  and  his  family."  He  calls  for"  wise  and  salutary 
regulations  counteracting  that  inequality  among  man- 
kind which  proceeds  from  the  present  fixed  dispropor-  / 
tion  of  their  possessions."  He  objects  to  nobility  on 
several  grounds,  one  of  which  is  that  "  it  has  a  necessary 
tendency  to  dishonour  labour."  He  advocates  man- 
hood franchise,  declaring  that  "  if  there  is  a  single  man 
in  Great  Britain  who  has  no  suffrage  in  the  election  of  a 
representative,  the  will  of  the  society  of  which  he  is  a 
member  is  not  generally  expressed ;  he  is  a  Helot  in 
that  society."     He  attacks  Burke  for  endeavouring  to 


220       A  REVOLUTIONIST  IN  ENGLAND     [chap,  ix 

rivet  the  present  to  a  dead  past.  He  rallies  the  Bishop 
on  having  deserted  the  cause  of  parliamentary  reform, 
and  charges  him  in  terrible  indignation  with  having  "  no 
wish  to  dispel  an  infatuation  which  is  now  giving  up  to 
the  sword  so  large  a  portion  of  the  poor,  and  consigning 
the  rest  to  the  more  slow  and  painful  consumption  of 
want."  Finally  he  glories  in  the  odium  under  which 
the  friends  of  Liberty  are  labouring,  and  expresses 
sorrow  that  they  can  expect  no  aid  from  his  lordship, 
their  lost  leader.  The  letter  ends  abruptly,  in  the 
middle  of  a  sentence. 

In  trying  to  decide  which  of  the  two  controversialists 
has  the  better  of  the  argument,  much  will,  of  course, 
depend  upon  the  reader's  point  of  view.  Watson's 
opinions  are  sober,  not  to  say  stale.  They  are  those  of  a 
man  who  looks  backward  rather  than  forward.  What 
has  been  and  is,  will  probably  continue.  He  is  a  pessi- 
mist when  he  regards  human  nature,  an  optimist  when 
he  estimates  human  institutions.  Wordsworth,  on  the 
other  hand,  looks  at  things  in  precisely  the  opposite 
way.  With  him,  as  with  all  revolutionists,  the  salient 
and  blessed  fact  in  life  is  the  possibility  of  indefinite 
progress.  Light  breaks  upon  him  out  of  the  future, 
and  he  turns  his  face  cheerfully  towards  the  light.  In 
comparison  with  the  infinite  aptitudes  of  man,  the 
pregnant  powers  of  his  divine  nature,  how  fragmentary 
and  imperfect  are  his  laws,  his  social  order,  and  all  his 
works  !  There  is  nothing  sacred  about  institutions 
except  their  value  to  living  men;  but  man  is  sacred.  It 
is  absurd  to  trace  this  faith  to  Rousseau,  as  if  it  had 
never  been  held  before  he  uttered  it.  No  general  ad- 
vance in  civilization  has  been  made  except  in  the 
strength  it  confers.  It  springs  in  every  healthy  young 
heart.  And  Wordsworth's  noble  pamphlet,  in  its 
buoyant  eloquence,  its  fearless  logic,  its  trust  in  the 
supremacy  of  goodness,  is  splendidly  youthful.  One 
would  rather  live  in  his  ideal  world  than  in  the  ideal 
world  of  his  antagonist.  And  one  would  rather  be  the 
writer  of  his  burning  plea  for  a  forlorn  hope  than  the 
staid  and  disillusioned  apologist  of  the  British  Constitu- 


n/ 


17933  THE  OUTCAST  221 

tion.  Wordsworth  never  wrote  anything  more  credit- 
able to  his  heart,  and,  except  Burke's  "  Reflections," 
the  literature  of  the  time  furnished  no  other  treatise  at 
once  so  lively,  so  acute,  and  so  profound. 

Bishop  Watson  seems  to  have  been  incorrigible,  and 
Wordsworth  was  not  his  last  assailant.  It  was  for 
writing  and  selling  a  reply  to  another  of  his  pamphlets 
in  defence  of  the  government  that  Wakefield  and 
Johnson  were  punished  in  1798.  And  as  war  between 
France  and  England  was  declared  in  February,  1793, 
rational  controversy  became  more  and  more  difficult. 

It  is  no  wonder  Wordsworth's  family  rejected  him.  \S 
To  his  uncles  it  was  plain  that  he  shared  the  views  of 
infidels  and  traitors.  Priestley,  Price,  and  Paine,  were 
the  bugbears  of  "  well-disposed  "  people,  who  then,  as 
ever,  made  no  mistake  in  associating  orthodox  standards 
of  religion  with  safe  and  settled  political  principles.  No 
historical  work  gives  a  strong  enough  description  of  the 
struggle  then  going  on  in  England;  but  from  the  pages 
of  reviews,  such  as  The  Gentleman 's  Magazine,  it  is 
possible  to  realize  how  wide  apart  the  two  sides  were, 
and  how  extremely  critical  was  the  situation.  The 
Revolutionists  were  able  and  active,  though  relatively 
not  numerous,  of  course.  Their  opponents,  with  the 
example  of  France  before  their  eyes,  watched  them  at 
every  turn.  For  instance,  a  quiet  and  reasonable  letter 
in  the  Magazine  on  the  subject  of  the  low  wages — one 
shilling  a  day — of  agricultural  labourers,  was  denounced 
by  another  correspondent  as  showing  "  a  tendency,  if 
not  the  design,  to  excite  tumult  and  revolt."  A  third 
thereupon  rejoined  that  writings  whose  purpose  was  "  to 
demonstrate  the  duty  of  acquiescence  and  point  out 
ideal  sources  of  comfort  to  the  poor  have  had  an 
evident  tendency  to  weaken  the  public  compassion  for 
their  sufferings."  A  writer  at  Cambridge,  after  much 
vile  detraction  of  Paine  and  injustice  to  Priestley, 
boasted  that  at  any  rate  three-fourths  of  the  students  in 
the  university  were  designed  for  the  Church.  What  was 
perhaps  regarded  as  the  extreme  of  sedition  was  reached 
in  "  Lessons  to  a  Young  Prince,"  by  David  Williams, 


222       A  REVOLUTIONIST  IN  ENGLAND     [chap,  ix 

who  had  been  a  friend  of  Benjamin  Franklin,  and  was 
made  a  French  citizen  in  1792.  To  the  Conservatives 
it  seemed  inopportune  to  the  point  of  criminality  that 
Godwin  should  write,  in  1793:  "Where  anarchy  has 
slain  its  hundreds,  despotism  has  sacrificed  millions 
upon  millions."  His  pages  on  the  unfair  advantages 
conferred  by  wealth,  marvels  of  condensed  wisdom  as 
they  are,  and  cool  in  their  expression,  were  considered 
peculiarly  untimely,  just  because  they  were  at  the  time 
peculiarly  true.  Poverty,  he  said,  was  a  bar  to  good 
society  and  to  advancement:  "  Does  a  man,  whose  ex- 
terior denotes  indigence,  expect  to  be  well  received  in 
society,  and  especially  by  those  who  would  be  under- 
stood to  dictate  to  the  rest  ?  .  .  .  The  lesson  that  is 
read  to  him  is,  Go  home,  enrich  yourself  by  whatever 
means,  obtain  those  superfluities  which  are  alone  re- 
garded as  estimable,  and  you  may  then  be  secure  of  an 
amiable  reception."  He  was  touching  another  sensitive 
spot  when  he  wrote  of  universities:  "  Public  education 
has  always  expended  its  energies  in  the  support  of 
prejudice;  it  teaches  its  pupils,  not  the  fortitude  that 
shall  bring  every  proposition  to  the  test  of  examination, 
but  the  art  of  vindicating  such  tenets  as  may  chance  to 
be  previously  established."  Wordsworth's  uncles  may 
not  have  read  the  chapter  "  Of  Religious  Establish- 
ments "  in  "  Political  Justice,"  but  they  would  know  in 
any  case  on  whom  to  fix  the  responsibility  for  his  not 
taking  orders.  We  must  always  remember  that  it  was 
William  Wordsworth  who  is  reported  to  have  said  to  a 
friend  :  "  Throw  aside  your  books  of  chemistry  and  read 
Godwin  on  Necessity  !"* 

*  See  Hazlitt's  "  Spirit  of  the  Age." 


CHAPTER  X 

PHILANTHROPIC  PLANS 

In  October,  1793,  while  Wordsworth  was  still,  so  far  as 
we  know,  a  guest  of  Robert  Jones,  or  exploring  the 
Welsh  mountains  in  his  company,  or  possibly  risking 
his  neck  in  France,  his  poetical  ventures  were  noticed  in 
The  Monthly  Review.  This  was  a  London  magazine  of 
high  standing.  The  criticism  of  "  Descriptive  Sketches  " 
and  "  An  Evening  Walk  "  is  a  sample  of  the  treatment 
their  successors  were  to  receive  for  many  years  to  come, 
superficial  and  lofty,  overlooking  their  serious  import, 
and  calling  attention  solely  to  novelties  and  oddities  of 
diction  and  figure.  It  is  smart  and  hard,  in  childish  imi- 
tation of  the  worst  qualities  of  Dr.  Johnson.  Coleridge 
had  not  yet  come,  Wordsworth  himself  had  not  yet  come, 
to  make  criticism  philosophical  and  to  give  it  a  soul. 
But  perhaps  it  is  expecting  too  much  to  demand  that  a 
couple  of  pages  in  a  magazine  should  possess  so  much. 
They  might  at  least,  however,  have  been  less  perfunctory.  " 

"  More  descriptive  poetry  !"  runs  the  trivial  strain. 
"  Have  we  not  yet  enough?  Must  eternal  changes  be 
rung  on  uplands  and  lowlands,  and  nodding  forests,  and 
brooding  clouds,  and  cells,  and  dells,  and  dingles  ? 
Yes;  more,  and  yet  more:  so  it  is  decreed.  Mr.  Words- 
worth begins  his  descriptive  sketches  with  the  following 
exordium."  Here  the  reviewer  quotes  the  first  twelve 
lines  of  the  poem.  "  May  we  ask,  how  it  is  that  rivers 
join  the  song  of  ev'n  ?  or,  in  plain  prose,  the  evening  ! 
but,  if  they  do,  is  it  not  true  that  they  equally  join  the 
song  of  morning,  noon,  and  night  ?  The  purple  morn- 
ing falling  in  flakes  of  light  is  a  bold  figure :  but  we  are 
told,  it  falls  far  and  wide — Where  ?--  On  the  mountain's 
side.     WTe  are  sorry  to  see  the  purple  morning  confined 

223 


224  PHILANTHROPIC  PLANS  [chap,  x 

so  like  a  maniac  in  a  straight  waistcoat.  What  the 
night  of  wing  of  silence  is,  we  are  unable  to  comprehend  : 
but  the  climax  of  the  passage  is,  that,  were  there  such 
a  spot  of  holy  ground  as  is  here  so  sublimely  described, 
unfound  by  Pain  and  her  sad  family,  Nature's  God  had 
surely  given  that  spot  to  man,  though  its  woods  were 
undiscovered." 

In  the  same  fashion  the  reviewer  tears  up  the  next 
sixteen  lines,  and  then  complacently  concludes:  "  How 
often  shall  we  in  vain  advise  those,  who  are  so  delighted 
with  their  own  thoughts  that  they  cannot  forbear  from 
putting  them  into  rhyme,  to  examine  those  thoughts 
till  they  themselves  understand  them  ?  No  man  will 
ever  be  a  poet,  till  his  mind  be  sufficiently  powerful  to 
sustain  this  labour."  He  has  his  fling  also  at  "  An 
Evening  Walk,"  having  taken  the  trouble  to  read  the 
first  four  lines  that  met  his  eye.  He  ridicules  the  bold- 
ness of  their  imagery.  Plainly,  his  standard  of  poetry 
is  prose.  "  These  are  figures,"  he  declares,  "  which  no 
poetical  licence  can  justify.  If  they  can  possibly  give 
pleasure,  it  must  be  to  readers  whose  habits  of  thinking 
are  totally  different  from  ours.  Mr.  Wordsworth  is  a 
scholar,  and,  no  doubt,  when  reading  the  works  of  others, 
a  critic.  There  are  passages  in  his  poems  which  display 
imagination,  and  which  afford  hope  for  the  future;  but, 
if  he  can  divest  himself  of  all  partiality,  and  will  criti- 
cally question  every  line  that  he  has  written,  he  will  find 
many  which,  he  must  allow,  call  loudly  for  amendment." 

When  we  consider  the  intensity  of  feeling,  the  depth 
of  experience,  and  the  artistic  toil,  that  went  to  the 
making  of  these  two  poems,  we  must  realize  that  their 
young  author,  a  lonely  and  homeless  youth,  read  these 
V  stupid  remarks  with  pain.  He  had  not  yet  acquired,  if 
he  ever  really  did  acquire,  that  indifference  to  published 
criticism  of  his  works  which  he  later  professed.  Of 
course,  he  perceived  that  the  reviewer  had  not  read 
more  than  the  first  page  or  two  of  either  poem — in  the 
case  of  "  An  Evening  Walk  "  the  page  of  Errata  ! — but 
no  doubt  he  was  hurt  and  disappointed.  The  worst  of 
it  was  that  he  must  already  have  begun  the  process  of 


r703l  A  STUPID  REVIEW  225 

self-criticism,  and  felt  the  unrealness  of  some  of  his 
figures .  It  is  absurd  to  say,  as  has  so  often  been  said, 
that  Wordsworth  was  incapable  of  judging  his  own 
work  correctly.  All  of  it  received,  or  was  allowed  to 
retain,  its  present  form  only  after  much  testing.  If  he 
sometimes,  especially  in  the  later  years  of  his  life, 
smoothed  away  rugged  beauties,  we  should  not  let  this 
blind  us  to  the  fact  that  the  general  result  of  his  revision 
was  to  heighten  and  purify  his  imagery  and  to  harmonize 
his  music.  He  might  well  have  left  his  earliest  poems 
unrevised,  because  their  interest  is  largely  biographical; 
but  no  doubt  the  changes  he  introduced  improved  them 
as  works  of  art.  No  young  author  could  read  such  a 
notice  of  his  first  books  without  being  deeply  affected. 
The  ruthless  critic  who  hastily  penned  those  flippant 
remarks  about  Wordsworth's  poetic  diction  deflected 
the  current  of  English  literature.  Clearly  as  the  poet 
must  have  seen  through  his  lazy  trick,  a  thing  said  is  a 
thing  said,  and  his  attention  had  been  rudely  drawn  to 
a  dangerous  mannerism.  He  never  again  personified  so 
freely,  never  again  indulged  so  intemperately  in  "  poetic 
licence." 

It  was  this  review  to  which  his  brother  Christopher 
referred  in  his  diary  on  November  5.  The  sage  collegian, 
reflecting  on  the  matter  three  days  later,  writes : 

"  No  author  ought,  I  think,  without  he  enters  the 
world  with  considerable  advantages,  to  begin  with  pub- 
lishing a  very  elaborate  work ;  however,  not  a  work  upon 
which  tastes  may  very  considerably  vary,  e.g.,  my  Br.'s 
Poems.  If  he  had  had  his  reputation  raised  by  some 
less  important  and  more  popular  poem,  it  would  have 
insured  from  pettv  critics  "a  different  reception*'to  his 
Descriptive  Sketches  and  An  Evening  Walk." 

Very  true  !  But  how  much  less  we  love  a  young  man 
for  being  so  wise,  and  how  unlike  William  this  sounds  ! 
Their  sister,  we  may  remember,  thought  Kit  "  not  so 
warm  as  William,"  but  "  much  more  likely  to  make  his 
fortune."  If  the  painful  lesson  proved  in  the  end  salu- 
tary to  the  poet,  and  hastened  the  simplification  of  his 
style,  it  was  not  because  he  sought  popularity.     In  spite 


226  PHILANTHROPIC  PLANS  [chap,  x 

pf  all  his  political  interests,  he  was  occupied  chiefly  in 

observing  the  world  with  a  poet's  eye  and  in  training 

//his  powers  of  expression.     The  result  is  perceptible  in 

\  /  "  Guilt  and  Sorrow,"  a  poem  which  dates  chiefly  from 
1793  and  1794.  Some  of  it — a  part,  that  is,  of  the 
Female  Vagrant's  story — was  composed  at  least  two 
years  earlier.  The  whole,  which  was  completed  before 
the  close  of  1794,  although  not  published  until  1842, 
.seems  not  to  have  been  much  altered.  "  The  Female 
Vagrant,"  corresponding  to  thirty  of  the  seventy-four 
stanzas  which  the  entire  work  contains,  was  published 
in  "  Lyrical  Ballads  "  in  1798. 

"  Guilt  and  Sorrow "  is  in  almost  every  respect  a 
great  advance  over  "  An  Evening  Walk  "  and  "  De- 
scriptive Sketches."  The  poet  turns  from  the  description 
of  nature,  in  which  he  had  not  excelled  Thomson  or 
equalled  Cowper,  and  attempts  the  more  difficult  work 
of  narration.  The  story  is  entirely  of  his  own  invention 
or  discovery.     It  did  not  come    to  him  recommended 

I  by  tradition  or  romantic  glamour.  He  increases  the 
difficulty  of  telling  it  by  employing  the  Spenserian 
stanza,  thus  multiplying  rhymes  and  imposing  on  himself 
the  task  of  keeping  up  the  interest  and  movement  of 
the  whole  tale  while  preserving  the  metrical  unity  of 
every  nine  lines.  Notwithstanding  his  use  of  this  highly 
artificial  measure,  whose  associations  suggest  loose 
sentence-structure  and  the  extreme  of  poetic  licence, 
he  has  avoided  both.  The  language  is  plain,  the 
liberties  taken  are  few  and  innocent,  as  compared  with 
his  previously  published  poems.  The  most  noticeable 
improvement  is  in  the  diction.  There  are  almost  no 
inappropriate  words,  almost  none  of  the  terms  ex- 
clusively employed  in  verse.  It  is  very  important  to 
observe  that,  before  he  had  ever  seen  Coleridge,  con- 
jointly with  whom  he  formulated  his  theory  of  poetic 
diction,  and  from  whom  he  received  welcome  encourage- 
ment, Wordsworth  was  already  employing  the  language 
of  everyday  life  in  narrative  poetry.  Nor  is  there  any- 
thing to  indicate  that  he  had  in  mind  the  examples  of 
Cowper  and  Crabbe. 


1793-1794]         "  GUILT  AND  SORROW  "  227 

As  might  have  been  expected  from  the  general  direc- 
tion of  his  thoughts,  the  poem  deals  with  humble  life 
So,  indeed,  did  the  earlier  ones,  whenever  human  figures 
appeared  in  them;  but  here  it  is  not  healthy  moun- 
taineers and  happy  milkmaids,  enlivening  the  scene  in 
harmony  with  beautiful  nature.  We  have,  instead,  the 
victims  of  social  wrong,  outcasts  from  the  world,  sunk 
in  fortune  below  the  level  of  contented  poverty.  More- 
over, Wordsworth's  immediate  preoccupation  with  the 
political  questions  of  the  day  gives  the  poem  its  aim; 
and  force.  It  is,  in  its  way,  as  truly  a  tract  for  the 
times  as  his  Reply  to  Bishop  Watson.  The  ravages  of 
war  among  the  poor,  raising  prices,  unsettling  employ- 
ment, causing  the  horrors  of  forced  conscription,  with 
the  breaking  up  of  families  and  impelling  of  innocent 
people  towards  legalized  murder,  are  portrayed  in  a 
startling  light.  There  is  no  relief,  no  suggestion  that 
the  glory  of  England  or  the  elevation  of  great  captains 
furnishes  compensation  for  these  wars.  The  evil  is 
probed  unflinchingly.  It  is  not  fair  to  saj',  as  some 
have  said,  that  the  young  poet  hugged  his  grief  because 
he  had  at  this  time  an  unwholesome  fondness  for  melan- 
choly. It  rather  seems  that  he  wrote  as  he  did  for  the 
noble  reason  that  his  mind  was  filled  with  sorrow  for 
others,  that  he  had  no  thought  of  self,  that  he  was  not 
blinded  by  false  appearances  of  national  splendour,  and 
that  he  knew  where  to  look  for  wider  and  vastly  more 
important  interests.  Following  the  lead  of  his  first 
biographer,  students  of  his  life  have  too  generally  spoken 
of  the  sombre  mood  out  of  which  this  poem  grew  as 
something  to  be  regretted,  or  at  least  condoned.  He 
never  was  more  truly  a  poet  in  the  sense  of  having  a 
prophetic  insight  into  the  life  of  his  times  and  marking 
out  the  course  of  progress,  than  when  he  perceived  the 
need  of  equality  and  the  absolutely  unmitigated  evil  of 
war.  It  is  to  be  noticed  also  that  in  this  poem  poor 
and  uneducated  persons  are  represented  naturally. 
They  are  the  objects  neither  of  sentimental  affectation 
nor  of  contemptuous  caricature.  They  do  not  speak  in 
dialect,  but  in  plain  English.     Their  emotions  are  not 


228  PHILANTHROPIC  PLANS  [chap,  x 

represented  as  the  peculiar  passions  of  a  class,  but  as 
human  feelings.  Above  all,  they  preserve  their  dignity. 
Not  their  poverty  and  lack  of  education  was  what  he 
saw  in  them,  but  qualities  of  mind  and  heart  which  are 
all  the  more  admirable  because  they  withstand  every 
disadvantage.  This  remained  Wordsworth's  permanent 
attitude,  and  is  throughout  one  of  the  great  distinctions 
of  his  poetry. 

Some  of  the  incidents  of  "  Guilt  and  Sorrow,"  par- 
ticularly the  story  of  the  soldier's  widow,  had  been 
narrated  to  him  years  before  by  a  woman  who  had 
suffered  as  she  suffers.  The  rest  had  suggested  itself  to 
him  as  he  rambled  over  Salisbury  Plain  after  separating 
from  Calvert.  The  sight  of  Stonehenge  had  made  him 
think  of  the  horrors  of  war  in  pagan  times,  and  reflect 
how  awful  they  are  still,  and  how  they  fall  more  upon 
the  poor  than  upon  others.  A  summary  of  the  poem 
would  fail  to  reproduce  its  intense  earnestness,  its  sim- 
plicity, and  tragic  power.  In  execution  no  less  than  in 
design,  it  is  immeasurably  above  the  rank  of  juvenilia 
in  which  it  was  once  classified,  and  its  value  is  strikingly 
enhanced  for  him  who  reads  it  soon  after  reading  the 
Reply  to  Bishop  Watson.  Two  lines  at  least  have  become 
celebrated — those  in  which  the  unhappy  woman,  after 
losing  her  husband  and  children  in  America  during  the 
War  of  Independence,  and  returning  to  England  in 
destitution,  cries : 

And  homeless  near  a  thousand  homes  I  stood. 
And  near  a  thousand  tables  pined  and  wanted  food. 

The  political  situation  in  1793  and  1794,  because  it 
was  due  to  the  conflict  between  two  philosophies,  which 
themselves  grew  out  of  two  permanent  aspects  of  human 
nature,  continued  to  absorb  Wordsworth's  interest,  pre- 
venting him  from  fixing  himself  in  any  profession.  No 
similar  crisis  has  affected  England  since,*  and  to  find  a 
parallel  we  must  go  back  to  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
teenth century.  Without  some  conception  of  its  mag- 
nitude, we  shall  utterly  fail  to  understand  the  course  of 

*   This  was  written  before  August,  1914. 


1793-1794]       ABSORPTION  IN  POLITICS  229 

our  poet's  outer  life,  and  still  more  the  current  of  his 
deepest  opinions  and  feelings.  To  perceive  how  intense 
was  the  passion,  it  is  not  enough  to  read  the  speeches 
of  Pitt  and  Burke's  "  Reflections,"  with  the  replies  made 
by  their  most  eminent  antagonists,  by  Fox  and  Sheridan, 
by  Mackintosh  and  Erskine.  It  is  not  enough  to  study 
Godwin's  "  Political  Justice  "  and  Paine's  "  Rights  of 
Man."  It  is  necessary  also  to  know  how  extensive  was 
the  small-fire  amid  the  crash  of  this  big  artillery.  The 
Press  teemed  with  sermons  and  pamphlets  for  and 
against  the  French  Revolution,  the  doctrine  of  innateN 
rights,  the  theor\'  of  equality,  the  plea  for  a  reform  of 
the  British  Constitution.  Several  societies  existed  for 
propagating  radical  views,  and  at  least  one  for  com- 
bating them.  The  public  ferment  was  widespread.  A 
small  but  not  inconsiderable  number  in  England  and 
Scotland  persisted  in  demanding  reforms  in  spite  of  the  / 
reflected  odium  cast  upon  all  advocates  of  change  by 
the  unhappy  condition  of  France.  As  is  usually  the 
case,  this  movement  was  confined  almost  entirely  to  the 
more  enlightened  class  of  artisans  and  to  professional 
men — in  other  words,  to  persons  who  depended  more 
than  others  upon  their  own  faculties.  They  were  for 
the  most  part  Dissenters,  and  of  course  Whigs.  The 
Whig  party  in  the  House  of  Commons  was  very  small, 
seldom  mustering  on  a  division  more  than  sixty  votes. 
Fox  and  Sheridan,  Whitbread,  Grey,  and  Wilberforce, 
were  among  its  most  prominent  leaders. 

With  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution  in  France  had 
coincided  a  remarkable  change  in  the  position  of  Burke. 
When  the  army  estimates  were  introduced  in  February, 
1790,  and  their  amount  was  objected  to,  notwithstand- 
ing the  course  of  events  abroad,  he  denounced  the  atti- 
tude of  his  friends  Fox  and  Sheridan,  saying  that  he 
"  was  sure  some  wicked  persons  had  shown  a  strong 
disposition  to  recommend  an  imitation  of  the  French 
spirit  of  reform."  His  dramatic  break  with  both  of 
these  disciples  presently  succeeded  this  declaration. 
From  that  time  forth  every  Whig  Bill  in  Parliament, 
every  speech  by  his  old  associates,  and  every  petition 


23o  PHILANTHROPIC  PLANS  [chap,  x 

for  reform  laid  before  the  House,  was  judged  by  him  as 
proceeding  in  some  way  from  this  nefarious  design. 
Attachment  to  established  institutions  became  in  him 
dread  of  change.  Trust  in  experience  was  perverted 
into  distrust  of  reason.  His  former  disapproval  of 
passion  and  prejudice  changed  suddenly  into  a  belief 
\/ that  they  were  the  necessary  safeguards  of  national 
honour.  He  became  the  hero  of  reaction.  Even  his 
greatest  admirers  admit  that  the  Revolution  was  hence- 
forth a  subject  which  he  could  not  discuss  without 
losing  his  sense  of  proportion.  In  November,  1790,  the 
torrent  of  his  eloquence,  compounded  of  argument  and 
feeling,  poured  itself  forth  in  his  famous  book,  "  Reflec- 
tions on  the  Revolution  in  France  and  on  the  Proceed- 
ings of  Certain  Societies  in  London  Relative  to  that 
v  Event."  The  immediate  cause  of  his-  alarm  was  a 
sermon  preached,  November  4,  1789,  by  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Price,  a  well-known  Unitarian  minister,  before  the  Revo- 
lution Society.  This  company  had  been  formed  very 
many  years  before  to  celebrate  at  an  annual  banquet 
the  "  glorious  Revolution  "  of  1688;  but  it  seems  that 
its  members  were  sufficiently  receptive  to  revolutionary 
ideas  in  general  to  lend  a  willing  ear  to  Dr.  Price  when 
he  proclaimed  that  the  insurrection  in  France  was  in 
accordance  with  principles  which  had  always  been  sacred 
to  the  lovers  of  progress  in  England. 

"  After  sharing,"  he  cried,  "  in  the  benefits  of  one 
revolution,  I  have  been  spared  to  be  a  witness  to  two 
other  revolutions,  both  glorious;  and  now,  methinks,  I 
see  the  ardour  for  liberty  catching  and  spreading,  and 
a  general  amendment  beginning  in  human  affairs — the 
dominion  of  kings  changed  for  the  dominion  of  laws, 
and  the  dominion  of  priests  giving  way  to  the  dominion 
of  reason  and  conscience." 

Another  body  of  men,  the  Society  for  Constitutional 
Information,  founded  in  1780,  was  precisely  what  its 
name  indicates.  It  distributed  political  tracts  for  the 
education  of  middle-class  people.  In  March,  1791,  it 
was  resolved  by  this  society  to  thank  one  of  their  mem- 
bers, Thomas  Paine,  for  his  services  in  writing  "  The 


1793-1794]    REVOLUTIONARY  SOCIETIES  23/ 

Rights  of  Man  :  an  Answer  to  Mr.  Burke's  Attack  on  the 
French  Revolution."  This  was  only  the  First  Part  of 
that  work.  It  was  published  very  soon  after  Burke's 
"  Reflections,"  and  is  more  temperate  than  the  Second 
Part,  which  appeared  in  1792,  and  led  to  its  author's 
expulsion  from  England.  No  English  book  of  that 
period  has  been  so  generally  denounced  as  dangerous  to 
society  as  "  The  Rights  of  Man."  Fox  was  careful  to 
deny  in  the  House  of  Commons  that  he  had  ever  read 
it.  To  approve  its  principles  or  to  associate  with  its 
author  was  enough  to  ruin  any  man's  reputation  for 
patriotism  and  morality.  Yet  a  candid  examination  of 
it  at  the  present  day  discloses  very  little  that  warrants 
reprobation,  unless  it  be  a  too  vivacious  and  vitupera- 
tive style,  and  disregard  for  the  prejudices  of  an  an- 
tagonist. And  these  faults,  raised  to  Olympian  mag- 
nificence, are  equally  present  in  Burke,  with  whom  they 
are  all  the  more  reprehensible,  because  the  objects  of 
his  scorn  were  unpopular  and  weak.  Paine  openly 
attacked  the  hereditary  principle.  This  was  the  root 
of  his  offence.  He  was  known  also  to  have  sided  with 
the  Americans  in  their  war  for  independence,  and  to 
have  been  elected  a  citizen  of  France,  and  even  a  dele- 
gate to  the  French  Convention. 

Another  association,  the  London  Corresponding 
Society,  was  started  by  Thomas  Hardy,  a  Scottish  shoe- 
maker, in  January,  1792.  Its  object  was  to  correspond 
with  other  bodies  that  desired  to  effect  a  reform  in  the 
franchise.  As  was  natural,  the  discussion  of  this  topic 
led  to  others  more  general,  and  the  example  of  France 
was  frequent!}-  cited.  Branch  societies  were  established 
in  London  and  elsewhere,  until  Hardy,  in  the  autumn, 
estimated  the  membership  at  more  than  twenty  thou- 
sand. Burke  at  one  time  declared  in  the  House  of 
Commons  that  there  were  thirty  Revolutionary  clubs 
in  London  alone,  one  of  them  with  six  hundred  members. 
Allowance  must  be  made  for  Hardy's  sanguine  tempera- 
ment and  for  Burke's  anger  and  panic.  Another  group 
of  clubs  sprang  up  in  the  same  year,  originating  in  the 
Society  of  the  Friends  of  the  People,  which  contained  a 


232  PHILANTHROPIC  PLANS  [chap,  x 

number  of  wealthy  and  influential  men,  and  was  coun- 
tenanced by  members  of  Parliament.  Paine  found  in 
all  these  organizations  good  machinery  for  distributing 
his  books.  From  the  profits  of  "  The  Rights  of 
Man  "  he  offered  one  thousand  pounds  to  the  Society 
for  Constitutional  Information.  The  Second  Part 
contained,  as  its  most  alarming  statement,  the  follow- 
ing words : 

"  All  hereditary  government  is  in  its  nature  tyranny. 
A  heritable  crown,  or  a  heritable  throne,  or  by  what 
other  fanciful  name  such  things  may  be  called,  has 
no  other  significant  explanation  than  that  mankind 
are  hereditable  property.  To  inherit  a  government 
is  to  inherit  the  people,  as  if  they  were  flocks  and 
herds." 

This  is  a  good  example  of  Paine 's  manner  of  stating  a 
paradox  as  if  it  were  a  platitude.  There  is  un  quelque 
chose  de  trop  in  all  he  says,  which  stimulates  or  irritates 
according  to  the  reader's  prepossessions.  Again,  in  the 
same  specious  way,  he  declares:  "  Government  has  of 
itself  no  rights;  they  are  altogether  duties."  But  side 
by  side  with  overstatements  and  novelties  insinuated 
under  the  guise  of  commonplace,  are  many  truths  which 
other  men  had  not  the  courage  or  the  ability  to  express. 

In  the  autumn  of  1 792  both  the  Corresponding  Society 
and  the  Society  for  Constitutional  Information  sent  con- 
gratulatory addresses  to  the  French  National  Conven- 
tion. The  language  of  these  effusions  provokes  a  smile, 
but  they  were  prompted  by  generosity: 

"  The  sparks  of  libert}^  preserved  in  England  for  ages, 
like  the  coruscations  of  the  northern  Aurora,  served  but 
to  show  the  darkness  visible  in  the  rest  of  Europe.  The 
lustre  of  the  American  Republic,  like  an  effulgent  morn- 
ing, arose  with  increasing  vigour,  but  still  too  distant  to 
enlighten  our  hemisphere  till  the  splendour  of  the  French 
Revolution  burst  upon  the  nations  in  the  full  fervour 
of  a  meridian  sun,  and  displayed  in  the  midst  of  the 
European  world  the  practical  result  of  principles  which 
philosophy  had  sought  in  the  shade  of  speculation,  and 
which  experience  must  everywhere  confirm." 


1793-1794]  POPULAR  FERMENT  233 

But  in  a  postscript  it  is  modestly  stated  in  ordinary 
English  that  the  Society  for  Constitutional  Information 
in  London  has  sent  to  the  soldiers  of  liberty  a  thousand 
pairs  of  shoes,  and  will  continue  sending  a  thousand 
pairs  a  week  for  at  least  six  weeks.  The  reply  of  the 
French  made  trouble  for  their  friends.  It  contained 
one  phrase  which  especially  excited  public  alarm:  "  The 
moment  cannot  be  distant  when  the  people  of  France 
will  offer  their  congratulations  to  a  National  Convention 
in  England." 

This  affair,  coming  close  upon  the  unhappy  events  of 
that  autumn  in  France,  unloosed  the  tempest.  Public^' 
alarm  and  indignation  ran  high.  An  Association  for 
Preserving  Liberty  and  Property  against  Republicans 
and  Levellers  was  formed  by  John  Reeves,  ex-Chief- 
Justice  of  Newfoundland,  who  had  returned  to  England 
in  October.  It  encouraged  the  prosecution  of  publishers 
and  vendors  of  seditious  tracts,  books,  and  newspapers. 
It  printed  and  distributed  incendiary  charges  against 
those  who  sympathized  with  the  French  or  dared  to 
advocate  parliamentary  reforms.  It  scattered  broad- 
cast the  most  platitudinous  panegyrics  on  the  British 
Constitution.  It  pointed  out  the  connection  between 
Whiggery  and  irreligion,  and  declared  the  Church  in 
danger.  Arrests  for  uttering  seditious  words  were  not 
infrequent  in  1 792 ;  they  multiplied  next  year.  John 
Frost,  for  declaring  he  was  for  equality  and  no  kings, 
and  the  Rev.  William  Winterbotham,  of  Plymouth,  for 
saying  in  a  sermon  that  "  His  Majesty  was  placed  on 
the  throne  on  condition  of  keeping  certain  laws  and 
rules,"  were  convicted  and  heavily  punished,  the  former 
in  spite  of  a  superb  defence  by  Thomas  Erskine.  This 
great  advocate  secured  the  acquittal  of  his  next  clients, 
Perry  and  Lambert,  the  editor  and  the  printer  of  The 
Morning  Chronicle,  in  the  first  trial  under  the  Libel  Act. 
Some  of  the  judgments  were  barbarously  severe.  Win- 
terbotham was  sentenced  to  four  years'  imprisonment  in 
Newgate,  and  Daniel  Holt,  a  Nottingham  printer,  for 
the  mild  offencefof  "[republishing  verbatim  a  political 
tract  originally  circulated  by  the  Thatched-House  Tavern 


234  PHILANTHROPIC  PLANS  [chap,  x 

Association,  of  which  Mr.  Pitt  and  the  Duke  of  Rich- 
mond were  members,"  was  sentenced  to  two  years' 
imprisonment.* 

An  effort  was  made  by  some  of  the  radical  societies 
...  in  1793  to  hold  a  National  Convention  of  delegates.  It 
was  not  until  late  in  November  that  this  plan  partially 
succeeded.  Delegates  from  forty-five  Scottish  and  four 
English  societies  met  in  Edinburgh,  but  after  a  few 
sittings  they  were  dispersed.  William  Skirving,  secre- 
tary of  the  convention,  and  Margarot  and  Gerrald,  dele- 
gates from  London,  were  arrested,  tried,  and  sentenced 
to  fourteen  years'  transportation.  The  Scottish  judges 
had  already  given  the  same  severe  sentence  to  Thomas 
Muir,  who  had  founded  a  Revolutionary  society  in  Glas- 
gow, and  one  of  seven  years  to  the  Rev.  Thomas  Fyshe 
Palmer  for  establishing  another  in  Dundee.  The  Lord 
Justice  Clerk,  or  Attorney  for  the  Crown,  at  Muir's  trial, 
stated  the  Tory  view  in  plain  terms  when  he  told  the 
jury:  "  The  Government  in  this  country  is  made  up  of 
the  landed  interest,  which  alone  has  a  right  to  be  repre- 
sented. As  for  rabble,  who  have  nothing  but  personal 
property,  what  hold  has  the  nation  of  them  ?"  As  at 
all  the  other  trials  for  sedition,  great  stress  was  laid 
upon  the  danger  of  free  speech  at  that  particular  time, 
when  the  country  was  unsettled  and  the  example  of 
France  was  awakening  false  hopes  in  the  minds  of  poor 
and  ignorant  people.  The  usual  boast  was  made  that 
"  the  British  Constitution  is  the  best  that  ever  was 
since  the  creation  of  the  world,  and  it  is  not  possible  to 
make  it  better." 

Three  elements  were  mingled  in  the  public  panic,  as 
doubtless  they  were  also  mingled  in  the  efforts  of 
"  seditious  persons."  These  were  political  theory, 
economic  theory,  and  religious  belief.  Sympathy  with 
France  was  considered  to  imply  disloyalty,  a  levelling 
tendency,  and  infidelity  to  the  Christian  religion.  From 
Burke  himself  down  to  the  lowest  informer  this  view 
was  held  or  professed  by  nearly  all  the  friends  of  King, 

*  Belsham,  "  Memoirs  of    the  Reign  of   George  the  Third,"  Vol.  IV., 
p.  43G. 


1793-1794]  PUBLIC  PANIC  235 

Property,  and  Church.  "  The  property  of  France  does 
not  govern  it,"  was  said  by  Burke  in  condemnation  of 
that  country. 

"  The  body  of  the  people,"  he  declared,  "  must  not 
find  the  principles  of  natural  subordination  by  art  rooted 
out  of  their  minds.  They  must  respect  that  property 
of  which  they  must  not  partake.  They  must  labour  to 
obtain  what  by  labour  can  be  obtained;  and  when  they 
find,  as  they  commonly  do,  the  success  disproportioned 
to  the  endeavour,  they  must  be  taught  their  consolation 
in  the  final  proportions  of  eternal  justice.  Of  this  con- 
solation whoever  deprives  them  deadens  their  industry 
and  strikes  at  the  root  of  all  acquisition,  as  of  all  con- 
solation." 

Whether  this  discouraging  conclusion,  to  which  his 
attachment  to  established  order  brought  even  so  humane 
a  man  as  Burke,  be  necessary  or  not,  we  can  be  sure  that 
the  young  author  of  "  Guilt  and  Sorrow  "  must  have 
read  it  with  vehement  disapproval.  Fortunately,  he 
had  gone  too  far  to  be  caught  by  the  inhuman  and 
blasphemous  use  of  theology  in  support  of  oppressive, 
institutions  implied  in  this  reference  to  "  eternal  justice.' 

It  seemed  futile  for  the  friends  of  any  reform  td 
struggle  against  a  public  alarmed  by  fears  of  plots,  oif 
against  a  majority  in  Parliament  who  were  more  or  less 
eager  for  war.  Fox's  motion  for  repeal  of  the  Test  ana 
Corporation  Acts,  imposing  political  and  social  disabili- 
ties on  Dissenters,  was  lost  in  1790,  and  the  number  of 
his  supporters  fell  from  105  on  that  occasion,  to  63  when 
he  brought  in  a  similar  measure  two  years  later.  Pitt 
and  Burke,  who  had  once  been  friends  of  electoral 
form,  now  thought  such  subjects  inopportune.  The 
Habeas  Corpus  Act  was  suspended.  Barracks  were 
erected  all  over  the  country.  Spies  and  informers  were 
employed  by  Government.  The  army  and  navy  were 
enormously  increased.  Prices  went  up.  Poverty  and 
unemployment  were  appalling.  The  only  gleam  of 
comfort  was  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade,  which  was 
at  length  carried  by  Wilberforce,  Fox,  and  their  friends, 
against  stolid  opposition.     Speakers  and  writers  on  the 


236  PHILANTHROPIC  PLANS  [cha*.* 

Tory  side,  and  advocates  in  courts  of  law,  openly  pro- 
fessed that  the  British  Constitution  did  not  admit  of 
representative  government,  and  that  men  of  wealth 
alone  should  have  the  suffrage.* 

To  anticipate  a  little,  the  suspicion  of  Government 
and  the  panic  of  the  great  majority  of  the  people  in 
England  and  Scotland  resulted  at  last  in  the  arraign- 
ment, on  the  charge  of  high-treason,  of  Thomas  Hardy, 
John  Home  Tooke,  a  preacher  and  politician,  Thomas 
Holcroft,  a  dramatist,  John  Thelwall,  a  professional 
agitator,  and  five  other  persons.  Their  cases  were 
practically  disposed  of  with  the  acquittal  of  Hardy  on 
November  5,  1794,  and  of  Home  Tooke  shortly  after- 
wards. The  prisoners  were  defended  by  Thomas  Ers- 
kine,  whose  speeches  did  much  to  counteract  the  alarmist 
tendencies  fostered  by  those  who  favoured  the  war. 
The  strength  of  the  opposition  was  shown  to  be  much 
greater  than  men  supposed,  by  the  widespread  sympathy 
manifested  for  the  prisoners,  and  by  the  vast  crowds 
that  welcomed  them  on  their  release.  There  can  be  no 
doubt  now  that  a  very  considerable  number  of  British 
subjects  were  on  their  side,  ranging  all  the  way  from 
extreme  revolutionists  to  moderate  reformers,  and  it  is 
evident  that  the  opinions  of  this  body  cannot  justly  be 
all  traced  to  Thomas  Paine  and  Rousseau.  They  were 
much  too  diversified,  and  many  of  them  too  natural  and 
inevitable,  to  be  thus  narrowed  down.  Some  of  them, 
indeed,  flow,  and  have  always  flowed,  as  an  undercur- 
rent, among  the  less  happy  and  privileged  elements  of 
every  community,  or  among  its  most  enlightened  mem- 
bers. History  tends  to  overlook  or  misjudge  move- 
ments which  do  not  appear  to  have  a  successful  issue, 
but  minority  reports  often  represent  views  the  most 
just  and  the  most  brave.  The  trials  of  Hardy,  Home 
Tooke,  Thelwall,  and  their  fellows,  were  the  culminating 
point  of  the  anti-Jacobin  panic.  Holcroft,  as  we  shall 
see,  became  soon  afterwards,  if  indeed  he  was  not  at 
that  time,  an  acquaintance  of  Wordsworth   and   Cole- 

'VSee  the  Attorney-General's  speech  on  the  trial  of  Thomas  Hardy,  and 
the  Chief  Justice  Clerk's  summary  on  the  trial  of  Thomas  Muir. 


i794l  A  WANDERING  GUEST  237 

ridge,  and  with  Thelwall  they  were  later  on   terms  of 
considerable  intimacy.* 

Meanwhile,  it  appears  that  lack  of  means  prevented 
Wordsworth  from  returning  to  the  intellectual  excite- 
ment of  London,  and  lack  of  an  invitation  kept  him 
away  from  Forncett.  Little  is  known  of  his  doings 
between  Dorothy's  letter  of  August  30, f  in  which  she 
writes  that  he  is  in  Wales  with  Robert  Jones,  and  his 
letter  to  William  Mathews, %  which  is  dated  February  17 
[1794].  In  this  he  gives  his  address  as  "  Mr.  Raw- 
son's,  Mill-house,  near  Halifax."  From  his  remark,  "  I 
quitted  Keswick  some  time  since,  and  have  been  moving 
backwards  and  forwards,"  we  may  perhaps  infer  that 
he  visited  Calvert,  who  lived  in  that  neighbourhood  ;  and 
from  a  letter  of  his  sister's  we  learn  that  he  stayed  at 
Armathwaite,   the   house   of   the   father   of    his   friend 

*  The  public  ferment  is  indicated  even  more  by  the  swarm  of  publica- 
tions on  fundamental  questions  than  by  the  debates  in  Parliament  or  the 
famous  State  trials  of  1793  and  1794.  For  example,  the  same  number  of 
The  Monthly  Review  that  contains  the  notice  of  Wordsworth's  volumes  of 
poetry  comments  on  no  less  than  twenty-five  books,  pamphlets,  and 
printed  sermons,  all  bearing  on  the  supreme  crisis.  We  find  among  them 
"  Addresses"  to  Burke,  to  Fox,  to  Pitt;  a  "  Poetical  Epistle  to  Fox  "; 
the  "  Speeches  of  Pitt  and  of  Fox  ";  "  Letters  on  the  Impolicv  of  a  Stand- 
ing Army  in  Time  of  Peace  and  on  the  Unconstitutional  and  Illegal  Measure 
of  Barracks";  "  A  Word  to  the  Wise,  to  Check,  if  Possible,  the  Dread 
Waste  of  War  and  Produce  Dignified  Self-Reform  ";  "  The  True  Briton's 
Catechism  .  .  .  Interspersed  with  Occasional  Strictures  on  Seditious  and 
Democratic  Writers";  "Reason  Urged  against  Precedent";  "A  Letter 
to  John  Frost,  a  Prisoner  in  Newgate  ";  "A  Brief  Review  of  Parliamen- 
tary Reformation  ";  "  The  Present  Alarming  Crisis  ";  "  Examination  of 
the  Principles  of  Thomas  Erskine";  "Benjamin  Franklin's  Rules  for 
Reducing  a  Great  Empire  to  a  Small  One  ";  and  "  Knaves-Acre  Associa- 
tion," an  attack  on  Justice  Reeves's  society.  There  are  several  French 
publications  and  translations  from  the  French,  among  them  "  Letters  on 
the  Confessions  of  J.  J.  Rousseau,"  and  an  "  Authentic  Copy  of  the  New 
Constitution  of  France."  The  clergy  of  the  Church  of  England  were  not 
silent,  neither  were  the  Unitarian  and  other  Dissenting  ministers.  The 
most  significant  of  the  books  from  these  two  quarters  reviewed  in  the 
October  number  was  "  Observations  on  the  Four  Gospels,"  advocating  "  a 
plain,  consistent,  rational  system  of  religion,  whose  basis  is  morality. " 
In  subsequent  numbers  even  more  attention  is  paid  to  the  works  of  con- 
troversy on  both  sides  of  the  great  threefold  questioo — constitutional, 
social,  and  religious. 

|   In  the  collection  of  Mr.  Marshall. 

J   "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,"  I.  57. 


238  PHILANTHROPIC  PLANS  [chap.x 

Spedding,  about  a  mile  north  of  Keswick.  "  I  am  now 
staying,"  he  says,  "  with  a  gentleman  who  married  a 
relation  of  mine  [his  cousin,  Miss  Threlkeld],  with  whom 
my  sister  was  brought  up."  And  then  follows  the 
momentous  statement  which  marks  an  epoch  in  his 
life  and  Dorothy's,  the  beginning  of  many  happy  years: 
^k\\  "  My  sister  is  under  the  same  roof  with  me,  and,  indeed, 
it  was  to  see  her  that  I  came  into  this  country."  The 
hope  long  deferred  had  been  realized  at  last.  Their 
meeting  at  Halifax  had  been  like  the  objective  of  a  long 
campaign.  How  many  plans,  how  many  sacrifices,  how 
many  delays,  had  preceded  this  reunion  !  Three  long 
years  had  passed  since  their  last  meeting,  in  the  Christ- 
mas holidays  of  1790-91.  His  only  home  was  in  her 
heart.  Travel,  independence,  battling  with  the  strong 
and  dangerous  currents  of  the  world's  life,  had  left  him 
unsatisfied.  Her  faithful  soul  had  been  kept  alive 
chiefly  by  hope  that  this  day  might  come.  Her  quick 
apprehension,  her  genius  for  observing  nature  and  the 
little  events  of  life,  her  rare  fidelity  of  expression,  these 
qualities  in  which  she  was  surpassed  by  no  woman  of 
her  time,  wanted  purpose  and  outlet  until  then;  and  it 
is  plain  that,  although  he  might  have  deepened  the  line 
he  had  already  chosen  and  become  a  great  reflective 
poet,  a  master  of  earnest  satire,  he  would  never,  with- 
out the  daily  companionship  of  his  sister,  have  found 
that  "  joy  in  widest  commonalty  spread  "  which  is  the 
life-blood  of  his  poetry.  They  were  never  again  separ- 
ated for  more  than  a  few  weeks  at  a  time  until  his  death. 
But  though  this  great  step  towards  a  settlement  had 
been  taken,  Wordsworth  was  still  far  from  having  found 
a  means  of  livelihood.  "  I  have  done  nothing,"  he 
writes,  "  and  still  continue  to  do  nothing.  What  is  to 
become  of  me  I  know  not.  I  cannot  bow  down  my 
mind  to  take  orders ;  and  as  for  the  law,  I  have  neither 
strength  of  mind,  purse,  or  constitution,  to  engage  in 
that  pursuit."  He  renounces  the  idea  of  taking  his 
Master  of  Arts  degree,  as  being  too  expensive.  He 
inquires  of  Mathews,  who  is  travelling  in  Mediterranean 
countries,  whether  "  the  principles  of  free  government 


17941  REUNION  WITH  DOROTHY  239 

have  any  advocates  in  Portugal;  or  is  Liberty  a  sound, 
of  which  they  have  never  heard  ?"  He  says  he  has 
read  no  Spanish  for  three  years,  and  little  Italian,  but 
of  French  he  esteems  himself  a  tolerable  master.  "  My 
Italian  studies,"  he  says,  "  I  am  going  to  resume  im- 
mediately, as  it  is  my  intention  to  instruct  my  sister  in 
that  language." 

Richard  Wordsworth,  their  father's  elder  brother,  was 
collector  of  the  port  of  Whitehaven,  and  thither,  after  a 
long  visit  together  near  Halifax,  the  happy  pair  de- 
parted by  coach.  The  distance  is  about  one  hundred 
miles.  How  long  they  remained  there  is  not  known, 
but  it  appears  that  William  Calvert  offered  them  rooms 
in  a  farmhouse,  called  Windy  Brow,  belonging  to  him, 
near  Keswick.  It  stood  on  the  southern  side  of  Latrigg, 
a  steep  hill  that  rises  from  the  River  Greta,  and  com- 
manded a  comprehensive  view  of  Derwentwater  and  the 
mountains  that  encircle  both  lake  and  town.  They 
entered  the  district  by  way  of  Kendal. 

"  I  walked,"  writes  Dorothy  triumphantly,*  "  with 
my  brother  at  my  side,  from  Kendal  to  Grasmere, 
eighteen  miles,  and  afterwards  from  Grasmere  to  Kes- 
wick, fifteen  miles,  through  the  most  delightful  country 
that  was  ever  seen.  We  are  now  at  a  farm-house,  about 
half  a  mile  from  Keswick.  When  I  came,  I  intended  to 
stay  only  a  few  days;  but  the  country  is  so  delightful, 
and,  above  all,  I  have  so  full  an  enjoyment  of  my 
brother's  company,  that  I  have  determined  to  stay  a 
few  weeks  longer.  After  I  leave  Windy  Brow,  I  shall 
proceed  to  Whitehaven." 

In  an  undated  letter  to  Miss  Pollard, f  she  dilates  on 
the  beauty  of  the  landscape  and  the  good  manners  and 
good  sense  of  the  tenant-farming  family  that  occupied 
Windy  Brow.  She  still  exults  in  her  new-found  free- 
dom, and  is  determined  it  shall  last  as  long  as  possible: 

'  You  would  hear  from  my  aunt  of  my  wonderful 
powers  in  the  way  of  walking,  and  of  my  safe  arrival  at 
Grasmere.  At  Keswick  I  still  remain.  I  have  been  so 
much  delighted  with  the  people  of  this  house,  with  its 

*  "  Memoirs,"  I.  83.  f   In  Mr.  Marshall's  collection. 


V 


240  PHILANTHROPIC  PLANS  [chap.x 

situation,  with  the  cheapness  of  living,  and  above  all 
with  the  opportunity  which  I  have  of  enjoying  my 
brother's  company,  that,  although  on  my  arrival  I  only 
talked  of  staying  a  few  days,  I  have  already  been  here 
above  a  fortnight,  and  intend  staying  still  a  few  weeks 
longer,  perhaps  three  or  four.  .  .  .  We  have  a  neat 
parlour  to  ourselves,  which  Mr.  Calvert  has  fitted  up 
for  his  own  use,  and  the  lodging-rooms  are  very  com- 
fortable. Till  my  brother  gets  some  employment  he 
will  lodge  here.  Mr.  Calvert  is  not  now  at  Windy  Brow, 
as  you  will  suppose.  We  please  ourselves  in  calculating 
from  our  present  expenses  for  how  verv  small  a  sum  we 
could  live.  We  find  our  own  food.  Our  breakfast  and 
supper  are  of  milk,  and  our  dinner  chiefly  of  potatoes, 
and  we  drink  no  tea." 

But  her  grand-aunt  Crackanthorpe,  of  Newbiggin, 
had  views  of  her  own,  which  were  also  the  views  of  the 
world,  or  the  elderly  and  respectable  part  of  the  world, 
as  to  the  propriety  of  living  gipsy-fashion.  Long  walks, 
indeed,  and  spending  several  weeks  in  a  farmhouse  be- 
longing to  the  young  and  wealthy  Mr.  Calvert  !  She 
communicated  these  ideas,  and  apparently  in  rather 
pungent  terms,  to  her  niece,  counting  perhaps  on  the 
submissiveness  which  had  perforce  been  shown  hitherto 
by  that  young  lady.  But  the  same  spirit  that  prompted 
the  Reply  to  Bishop  Watson  flames  up  in  Dorothy's 
answer  of  April  21,  1794,  and  it  is  quite  likely  that  her 
independence  was  charged  against  the  French  or  Tom 
Paine  and  the  Americans.  She  takes  refuge  proudly 
under  the  shadow  of  her  brother's  name:* 

"  I  affirm  that  I  consider  the  character  and  virtues  of 
my  brother  as  sufficient  protection;  and  besides  I  am 
convinced  that  there  is  no  place  in  the  world  in  which 
a  good  and  virtuous  young  woman  would  be  more  likely 
to  continue  good  and  virtuous  than  under  the  roof  of 
these  honest,  worthy,  uncorrupted  people:  so  that  any 
guardianship  beyond  theirs  I  should  think  altogether 
unnecessary.  I  cannot  pass  unnoticed  that  part  of  your 
letter  in  which  you  speak  of  my  '  rambling  about  the 
country  on  foot.'  So  far  from  considering  this  as  a 
matter  of  condemnation,  I  rather  thought  it  would  have 

*   "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,"  I.  62. 


17941  PRUDISH  INTERFERENCE  241 

given  my  friends  pleasure  to  hear  that  I  had  courage  to 
make  use  of  the  strength  with  which  nature  has  en- 
dowed me,  when  it  not  only  procured  me  infinitely  more 
pleasure  than  I  should  have  received  from  sitting  in  a 
post  chaise,  but  was  also  the  means  of  saving  me  at 
least  thirty  shillings." 

She  mentions  as  her  greatest  inducement  the  society 
of  her  brother : 

"  I  am  now  twenty-two  years  of  age,  and  such  have 
been  the  circumstances  of  my  life  that  I  may  be  said  to 
have  enjoyed  his  company  only  for  a  very  few  months. 
An  opportunity  now  presents  itself  of  obtaining  this 
satisfaction,  an  opportunity  which  I  could  not  see  pass 
from  me  without  unspeakable  pain.  I  have  regained 
all  the  knowledge  I  had  of  the  French  language  some 
years  ago,  and  have  added  considerably  to  it.  I  have 
now  begun  Italian,  of  which  I  expect  to  have  soon 
gained  a  sufficient  knowledge  to  receive  much  enter- 
tainment and  advantage  from  it." 

She  accepts  the  invitation  of  her  aunt  and  uncle  to 
visit  them  on  her  return  from  Whitehaven. 

The  beautiful  poem  "  Louisa  "  and  the  lines  "To  a 
Young  Lady  who  had  been  Reproached  for  taking  Long 
Walks  in  the  Country  "  may  well  have  been  composed 
at  this  time,  and  the  latter  in  consequence  of  Mrs. 
Crackanthorpe's  admonition.  It  is  well  known  that 
Wordsworth  in  a  number  of  poems  addressed  his  sister 
under  other  names  than  her  own.  "  Dear  Child  of 
Nature,  let  them  rail  !"  is  appropriate  to  her  and  to  the 
occasion.  Later,  when  she  was  definitely  settled  in  life 
with  him,  there  could  have  been  no  one  who  would  feel 
authorized  to  "  reproach  "  her.  Wordsworth,  in  ex- 
treme old  age,  gave  an  inconsistent  account  of  the  dates 
of  both  poems,  attributing  them  to  1803  and  to  1805, 
and  saying  that  they  were  "  composed  at  the  same  time 
and  on  the  same  view."  Yet  the  second  of  them  was 
printed  in  The  Morning  Post  newspaper  on  February  12, 
1802.  Moreover,  the  expression  "  Lapland  night  "  is 
one  which  he  used  in  a  letter  in  1791.  The  internal 
connection  between  the  two  poems  was  once  closer  than 
1. 


242  PHILANTHROPIC  PLANS  [chap,  x 

it  now  appears  to  be.  When  "  Louisa  "  was  first 
printed,  in  the  edition  of  1807,  it  began: 

Though  by  a  sickly  taste  betrayed, 
Some  will  dispraise  the  lovely  Maid, 
With  fearless  pride  I  say; 

and  this  reading  reappeared  in  the  edition  of  1845. 
One  is  almost  persuaded  that  this  was  an  allusion  to 
Mrs.  Crackanthorpe's  sense  of  propriety.  All  other 
editions  give  a  very  different  reading.  Curiously  enough, 
the  peculiar  form  of  stanza  used  in  these  two  poems  is 
the  same  as  that  of  "  Three  years  she  grew  in  sun  and 
shower  ";  and  what  was  printed  as  the  second  stanza  of 
"  Louisa,"  in  the  editions  from  1807  to  1843,  looks  as  if 
it  had  originally  belonged  to  this  lovely  nameless  piece, 
which  the  poet  printed  as  having  been  composed  in  the 
Harz  Forest  in  1799.     It  reads: 

And  she  hath  smiles  to  earth  unknown ; 

Smiles  that  with  motion  of  their  own 

Do  spread,  and  sink,  and  rise; 

That  come  and  go  with  endless  play, 

And  ever,  as  they  pass  away, 

Are  hidden  in  her  eyes. 

It  is  a  metre  the  poet  rarely  used.  One  stanza  of  his 
translation  of  the  Vicomte  de  Segur's  French  Verses, 
1795,  the  pieces  mentioned,  "  Ruth,"  1799,  one  stanza 
of  "  The  Waterfall  and  the  Eglantine,"  1800,  and  six 
other  poems  scattered  along  between  1814  and  1831, 
are  the  only  instances.  All  these  facts  incline  me  to 
think  that  the  verses  "  Louisa  "  and  "To  a  Young 
Lady  "  were  composed  long  before  1802.  Whether 
they  affect  the  date  and  subject  of  "  Three  years  she 
grew  "  is  another  matter. 

Four  long  letters  from  Wordsworth  in  the  North  to 

William  Mathews  in  London,  written  at  long  intervals 

/! between  May  23,  1794,  and  January  10,  1795,  present 

'him  in  a  new  and  rather  surprising  light.*     To  no  other 

correspondent,  so  far  as  we  know,  did  he  ever  write  with 

*   "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,"  I.  65,  G9,  77,  and  81.     I  have 
uot  seen  the  originals. 


i794l  THE  ZEALOUS  DEMOCRAT  243 

so  little  reserve.  The  subject  this  time  is  a  plan  of 
editing  a  magazine  in  the  Metropolis,  or,  in  case  that 
cannot  be  done,  of  finding  a  place  on  some  newspaper. 
He  is  afraid  of  venturing  to  London,  on  account  of  the 
expense.  He  thinks  of  remaining  in  the  North  and 
sending  his  contributions  by  post.  Mathews  and  another 
young  man  are  to  attend  to  the  business  in  town. 
Wordsworth  himself,  and  Mathews,  too,  as  he  supposes, 
are  too  poor  to  advance  any  money  towards  carrying 
out  the  scheme,  but  perhaps  this  might  be  got  over,  he 
boyishly  says,  if  they  could  be  sure  of  the  patronage  of 
the  public.  He  wishes  Mathews  distinctly  to  under- 
stand what  his  political  sentiments  are,  as  the  plan 
cannot  proceed  unless  the  editors  agree  on  this  subject. 
In  such  a  work  as  they  have  in  mind,  "  it  will  be  im- 
possible not  to  inculcate  principles  of  government  and  / 
forms  of  social  order  of  one  kind  or  another."  His  con-  / 
fession  of  political  faith  is  brief  and  unequivocal : 

"  I  solemnly  affirm  that  in  no  writings  of  mine  will  I 
ever  admit  of  any  sentiment  which  can  have  the  least 
tendency  to  induce  my  readers  to  suppose  that  the  doc- 
trines which  are  now  enforced  by  banishment,  imprison- 
ment, etc.,  etc.,  are  other  than  pregnant  with  every 
species  of  misery.  You  know  perhaps  already  that  I 
am  of  that  odious  class  of  men  called  democrats,  and 
of  that  class  I  shall  for  ever  continue." 

He  proposes  to  contribute  essays  on  Morals  and  ' 
Politics,  besides  critical  remarks  upon  Poetry,  Painting, 
Gardening,  "  and  other  subjects  of  amusement."  He 
declares  that  all  the  periodicals  with  which  he  is  ac- 
quainted, except  one  or  two,  "  appear  to  be  written  to 
maintain  the  existence  of  prejudice  and  to  disseminate 
error,"  and  to  such  purposes  he  will  not  prostitute  his 
pen.  He  has  plenty  of  leisure,  and  is  only  correcting 
and  adding  to  his  published  poems,  which  he  had 
"  huddled  up  "  and  sent  imperfect  into  the  world  with 
great  reluctance. 

"  But,"  he  continues,  "  as  1  had  done  nothing  by 
which  to  distinguish  myself  at  the  University,  I  thought 
these  little  things  might  show  that  I  could  do  something. 


244  PHILANTHROPIC  PLANS  [chap,  x 

They  have  been  treated  with  unmerited  contempt  by 
some  of  the  periodical  publications,  and  others  have 
spoken  in  higher  terms  of  them  than  they  deserve.  I 
have  another  poem,  written  last  summer,  ready  for  the 
press,  though  I  certainly  should  not  publish  it  unless  I 
hoped  to  derive  from  it  some  pecuniary  recompense." 

And  he  begs  Mathews  to  look  in  at  Johnson's,  the 
publisher's,  "  and  ask  him  if  he  ever  sells  any  of  those 
poems." 

Writing  again  from  Whitehaven  in  June,  he  says  he 
has  read  with  great  pleasure  the  explicit  avowal  of 
Mathews's  "  political  sentiments,"  and  in  return  will 
set  forth  his  own  in  more  detail. 

I  "I  disapprove,"  he  declares,  "  of  monarchical  and 
/  aristocratical  government's,  however  modified.  Heredi- 
tary distinctions,  and  privileged  orders  of  every  species, 
I  think  must  necessarily  counteract  the  progress  of 
human  improvement :  hence  it  follows  that  I  am  not 
amongst  the  admirers  of  the  British  Constitution." 

/  Two  causes  are  at  work,  he  says,  subverting  the  Con- 
stitution:  first,  the  bad  conduct  of  men  in  power;  and 
second,  "  the  changes  of  opinion  respecting  matters  of 
government  which  within  these  few  years  have  rapidly 
taken  place  in  the  minds  of  speculative  men."  To 
hasten  these  changes,  he  says,  "  I  would  give  every 
additional  energy  in  my  power,"  though  he  adds:  "  I 
recoil  from  the  bare  idea  of  a  Revolution."  Then,  as 
if  to  give  Mathews  a  specimen  of  what  the  country 
editor  of  the  proposed  magazine  was  capable  of,  he  rises 
heavily  to  a  flight  of  eloquence  in  a  manner  already  long 
out  of  fashion.  There  is  a  magisterial  air  in  all  Words- 
worth's prose,  except  his  shortest  and  most  familiar 
letters.  On  more  than  one  occasion  the  style  attains 
real  majesty.  On  many  others,  we  must  confess,  it  is 
affectedly  pompous,  owing  very  likely  to  the  fact  that 
he  was  imitating  Milton  and  other  seventeenth-century 
controversialists.  His  political  programme  is  vague. 
He  has  hardly  got  beyond  sentiment  and  declamation. 
He  mentions  no  definite  reform  which  he  wishes  to  see 
established,  except  granting  complete  liberty  of  the  Press. 


1794]  A  JOURNALISTIC  PROJECT  245 

11  On  this  subject,"  he  concludes,  "  I  think  I  have 
said  enough,  if  it  be  notjiecessary  to  add  that,  when  I 
observe  the  people  should  be  enlightened  upon  the  sub- 
ject of  politics,  I  severely  condemn  all  inflammatory 
addresses  to  the  passions  of  men,  even  when  it  is  in- 
tended to  direct  those  passions  to  a  good  purpose.  I 
know  that  the  multitude  walk  in  darkness.  I  would 
put  into  each  man's  hand  a  lantern  to  guide  him,  and 
not  have  him  set  out  upon  his  journey  depending  for 
illumination  on  abortive  flashes  of  lightning  or  the 
coruscations  of  transitory  meteors." 

From  this  dizzy  height  the  young  enthusiast  descends 
to  particulars.  He  proposes  as  the  name  of  their 
periodical,  The  Philanthropist,  a  Monthly  Miscellany, 
gravely  remarking:  "  This  title,  I  think,  would  be 
noticed.  It  includes  everything  that  can  instruct  and 
amuse  mankind."  He  goes  on  buoyantly  to  sketch  the 
several  departments  of  the  magazine,  insisting  that  the 
pages  allotted  to  verse  should  be  filled  from  new  poetical 
publications  of  merit,  and  such  old  ones  as  are  not  gener- 
ally known.  As  to  subscribers,  he  expresses  himself 
hopefully,  but  warns  Mathews  that  "  amongst  the  par- 
tisans of  this  war  and  of  the  suspension  of  the  Habeas 
Corpus  Act,  amongst  the  mighty  class  of  selfish  alarm- 
ists," they  would  find  no  friends.  "  We  must  then  look 
for  protection  entirely  amongst  the  dispassionate  advo- 
cates of  liberty  and  discussion."  The  clergy,  he  is  sure, 
will  turn  from  them.  But  from  young  men  at  the  uni- 
versities, from  Dissenters,  and  perhaps  in  Ireland,  the}' 
will  receive  support.  As  to  money,  he  has  not  a  single 
sixpence  to  advance,  and  he  must  remain  in  the  country. 
A  friend,  he  says,  has  offered  him  a  share  of  his  income, 
which  puts  him  under  the  obligation  of  trying  to  be  of 
some  little  service  to  his  fellow-men.  We  infer  that  he 
means  to  perform  this  service  by  writing  poetry,  and 
it  was  indeed  well  for  him  and  for  his  fellow-men  to  all 
time  that  he  did  not  plunge  into  the  soul-consuming 
trade  of  journalism.  It  is  interesting,  however,  that  he 
thought  seriously  of  doing  so,  and  under  all  his  odd 
verbiage  one  may  easily  perceive  a  brave  and  enter- 
prising spirit.     Boyish   zest   and   manly  foresight  here 


/ 


V 


246  PHILANTHROPIC  PLANS  [chap,  x 

meet  and  mingle  strangely.  He  begs  Mathews  to 
answer  him  "  as  soon  as  possible,  and  at  great  length." 
His  own  letter  covers  nearly  eight  printed  pages,  and 
ends  with  the  stately  assurance:  "  I  am,  with  great 
respect  and  esteem,  your  fellow-labourer  and  friend, 
W.  Wordsworth." 

After  such  a  bold  challenge,  it  is  amusing  to  turn  to 
Wordsworth's  letter  to  Mathews,  headed  Keswick, 
November  7,  1794,  and  read:  "  The  more  nearly  we  ap- 
proached the  time  fixed  for  action,  the  more  strongly 
was  I  persuaded  that  we  should  decline  the  field.  I 
was  not,  therefore,  either  much  surprised  or  mortified 
at  the  contents  of  your  letter."  The  scheme  has  been 
abandoned,  and  Mathews  has  taken  a  position  on  some 
London  newspaper.  WTordsworth  wants  to  know  what 
it  is  like,  with  the  idea  of  seeking  a  similar  post.  "  I 
begin  to  wish  much  to  be  in  Town,"  he  says,  and  adds 
very  sensibly,  "  Cataracts  and  mountains  are  good 
occasional  society,  but  they  will  not  do  for  constant 
companions."  In  January,  1795,  he  takes  up  again  the 
topic  of  journalism  in  London,  admitting  his  total 
ignorance  of  what  qualifications  are  required.  He  is 
sure  he  could  not  make  a  good  parliamentary  reporter, 
having  neither  strength  of  memory,  quickness  of  pen- 
manship, nor  rapidity  of  composition,  and  being  subject 
to  violent  headaches. 

"  One  thing,  however,  I  can  boast,"  he  says,  "  and 
on  that  one  thing  I  rely,  extreme  frugality.  .  .  .  You 
say  a  newspaper  would  be  glad  of  me ;  do  you  think  you 
could  insure  me  employment  in  that  way  on  terms 
similar  to  your  own  ?  I  mean  also  in  an  opposition 
paper,  for  really  I  cannot,  in  conscience  and  in  principle, 
abet  in  the  smallest  degree  the  measures  pursued  by 
the  present  Ministry." 

A  little  light  from  another  quarter  is  thrown  upon 
these  journalistic  projects  by  a  passage  in  Charles 
Mathews's  "  Memoirs."  He  tells  us  that  his  brother 
added  to  the  income  allowed  him  by  his  father  by  con- 
tributing to  The  Oracle  and  The  World,  and  for  a  time 
was  parliamentary  reporter  to  these  and  other  news- 


i794.         THE  CHARACTER  OF  MATHEWS         247 

papers.  Boaden,  the  enthusiastic  admirer  and  subse- 
quently the  biographer  of  the  Kembles,  edited  The 
Oracle,  and  Charles  Mathews  himself  was  for  a  little 
while  editor  of  The  Thespian,  a  periodical  entirely  de- 
voted to  the  drama. 

It  is  a  pity  that  so  little  is  known  about  one  who  evi- 
dently was  Wordsworth's  most  intimate  friend  at  this 
interesting  period  of  his  life.  Inference  based  upon  only 
one  side  of  their  correspondence  enables  one  to  assert, 
with  considerable  confidence,  that  Mathews  was  a  rebel 
against  religious  authority,  and  that  community  of 
feeling  on  this  subject  was  one  of  the  bonds  between  the 
young  men.  They  had  been  contemporaries  at  Cam- 
bridge, they  saw  something  of  each  other  afterwards  in 
London,  they  both  refused  to  obey  the  wishes  of  their 
families  and  study  for  the  ministry.  A  letter  from 
Mathews  to  his  brother,  dated  Barbados,  June  5,  1801, 
confirms  the  conjecture  that  religious  independence  was 
a  very  serious  concern  with  him.     He  writes:* 

"  Hitherto  ill-fortune  has  pursued  me  in  every  shape; 
but  I  hope  that  her  persecution  is  nearly  over;  and  I 
trust  that  hereafter  I  shall  be  enabled  to  spend  a  tran- 
quil life  in  the  society  of  my  friends  in  England  in  ease 
and  affluence.  Whatever  may  be  my  fate,  I  shall  still 
have  the  consolation  of  having  exerted  myself,  and  of 
having  acquired  in  every  situation  the  esteem  of  men 
of  sense  and  worth.  .  .  .  Tell  Eliza  [his  brother's  wife] 
from  me  that  I  sincerely  wish  her  well  in  body  and  mind ; 
but  that  to  secure  the  latter  from  disease  she  must  care- 
fully watch  that  the  seeds  of  superstition,  which  some 
one  has  plentifully  sown  in  her  heart,  do  not  bring  forth 
the  fruit  it  generally  does,  illiberality  of  sentiment  and 
that  worst  of  all  fiends,  religious  bigotry.  The  whole 
history  of  mankind  is  but  a  relation  of  the  fatal  and 
mischievous  effects  of  this  diabolical  tyrant  who  has 
uniformly  preyed  upon  the  enlightened  few  that  have 
dared  to  lift  up  their  heads  against  the  oppressor  of 
their  afflicted  brethren,  and  has  gnawed  the  very  vitals 
of  social  existence.  There  is  no  part  of  the  globe  that 
is  not  even  now  groaning  beneath  her  baneful  pressure; 
and  whatever  form  she  assumes,  she  still  arrogates  to 

*   "  Memoirs  of  Charles  Mathews." 


248  PHILANTHROPIC  PLANS  [chap,  x 

herself  the  claim  of  infallibility,  and  her  votaries,  of 
whatever  sect  they  may  be,  damn  by  wholesale  all  the 
rest  of  the  world.  A  freedom  from  superstition  is  the 
first  blessing  we  can  enjoy.  Religion  in  some  shape 
seems  necessary  to  political  existence.  The  wise  man 
laughs  at  the  follies  of  the  vulgar,  and  in  the  pure  con- 
templation of  a  benevolent  Author  of  all  Beings  finds 
that  happiness  which  others  in  vain  look  for  amid  the 
load  of  trumpery  and  ceremonies  with  which  they  think 
the  Creator  is  gratified.  If  He  can  be  gratified  by  an 
exertion  of  feeble  mortals,  it  must  be  when  they  imitate 
His  perfection  by  mutual  benevolence  and  kindness. 
That  you  may  long  enjoy  these  blessings  is  the  sincere 
prayer  of  your  brother  and  friend,  W.  Mathews." 

Whereupon  Charles  Mathews's  second  wife,  who 
edited  his  "  Memoirs,"  comments  as  follows: 

"  With  the  above  remarks  the  writer's  early  experi- 
ence had  something  to  do ;  and  his  feelings  naturally 
took  alarm  at  a  mistaken  tendency,  evident  to  all  who 
knew  the  amiable  person  to  whom  he  alludes.  Mr. 
William  Mathews  had  in  his  boyhood  felt  the  gloom  and 
rigours  of  fanaticism  beneath  his  father's  roof,  where  he 
had  ceased  to  reside  for  some  years,  although  he  fre- 
quently visited  it,  and  was  on  the  most  affectionate 
terms  with  all  his  family,  who  might  be  said  to  idolize 
him.  But  in  these  visits  he  resisted  with  all  the  energies 
of  his  strong  mind  every  after-association  with  the 
ignorant  and  illiberal  portion  of  his  father's  '  brethren.'  " 

Meanwhile — to  be  as  vague  as  possible,  for  the  exact 
time  is  not  known — Wordsworth  had  found  means  of 
being  directly  serviceable  to  a  fellow-being,  and  was 
faithfully  performing  his  duty.  His  friend  William 
Calvert  and  a  younger  brother,  Raisley,  were  sons  of 
the  steward  of  the  Duke  of  Norfolk,  who  owned  a  large 
estate  at  Greystoke,  four  miles  from  Penrith.  They 
had  considerable  independent  means.  William,  as  we 
have  seen,  owned  Windy  Brow.  It  was  evidently  one 
of  these  brothers,  probably  the  younger,  who  offered 
Wordsworth  a  share  of  his  income  to  enable  him  to 
preserve  his  independence  and  write  poetry.  Raisley 
was  dying  of  consumption,  and  Wordsworth  remained 


1794]  RAISLEY  CALVERT'S  LEGACY  249 

with  him  to  comfort  and  entertain  him,  probably  all 
through  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1 794.  On  October  1 
he  wrote  to  William  Calvert  from  Keswick,  suggesting 
that  by  a  little  economy  the  latter  might  help  Raisley 
to  go  to  Lisbon  for  his  health,  and  offering  to  accompany 
him. 

"  Reflecting,"  he  says,  "  that  his  return  is  uncertain, 
your  brother  requests  me  to  inform  you  that  he  has 
drawn  out  his  will,  which  he  means  to  get  executed  in 
London.  The  purport  of  his  will  is  to  leave  you  all  his 
property,  real  and  personal,  chargeable  with  a  legacy  of 
£600  to  me,  in  case  that  on  inquiry  into  the  state  of  our 
affairs  in  London  he  should  think  it  advisable  to  do  so. 
It  is  at  my  request  that  this  information  is  communi- 
cated to  you,  and  I  have  no  doubt  but  that  you  will  do 
both  him  and  myself  the  justice  to  hear  this  mark  of  his 
approbation  without  your  good  opinion  of  either  of  us 
being  at  all  diminished  by  it." 

It  would  appear  that  inquiry  into  the  affairs  of  the 
Wordsworth  heirs  showed  that  their  lawsuit  against  the 
Earl  of  Lonsdale  was  going  badly;  for  Raisley  Calvert,  / 
who   died   at   Penrith   early  in    1795,   left  Wordsworth 
£900-* 

This  legacy  from  a  young  man  who  judged  highly  of 
Wordsworth's  poetical  powers  must  not  onry  have  ^ 
released  him  from  the  fear  of  want,  but  have  made  him 
renew  his  dedication  to  that  art  which  thus  far  had 
proved  almost  too  stubborn  for  him.  In  a  letter  to 
Mathews,  written  just  before  this  event,  Wordsworth 
admits  that,  although  he  had  had  sufficient  time  on  his 
hands  to  write  a  folio  volume,  he  had  been  undergoing 

*  Mr.  Gordon  Wordsworth  informs  me  that  on  visiting  Greystoke 
Church  he  found  that,  according  to  the  records,  Raisley  Calvert  was  buried 
there  January  12,  1795.  This  being  the  case,  Letter  XXXIX.,  beginning 
on  p.  84  of  Vol.  I.  of  Professor  Knight's  collection,  is  evidently  not  cor- 
rectly dated.  I  would  suggest  that  the  date  was  not  January  27,  1795, 
but  December  27,  1794;  that  Letter  XXXVIII.  is  a  part  of  the  same 
letter;  and  that  the  whole  was  posted  January  10,  perhaps  the  very  day 
of  Calvert's  death.  Letter  XXXIX.  would  thus  be  a  postscript  to 
No.  XXXVIII.,  added  on  January  7  at  Penrith.  The  acquittals  of  Hardy 
mber  5)  and  Home  Tooke  (November  22)  are  mentioned  jn 
No.  XXXV1JI.  with  rejoicing. 


7 


250  PHILANTHROPIC  PLANS  [chap,  x 


much  uneasiness  of  mind.  "  My  poor  friend,"  he  says, 
"  is  barely  alive  .  .  .  but  he  may  linger  on  for  some 
days."  Politics  and  the  success  of  Mathews's  news- 
paper appear  to  have  been  his  only  other  interests.  His 
sister  had  been  obliged  to  leave  him  and  return  to 
Halifax.  But  for  the  dying  gift  of  Raisley  Calvert, 
bestowed  with  so  much  insight,  the  cottage  they 
dreamed  of  might  have  been  still  a  dream  for  many  years. 
Without  some  degree  of  independence  and  without  the 
constant  societ}'  of  Dorothy,  the  years  of  fruitfulness 
could  not  have  come  for  Wordsworth.  The  £900  made 
an  immense  difference  in  his  prospects,  and  we  may 
well  believe  that  his  hope  of  writing  poetry  revived  in 
him  at  once.  The  money  meant  even  more  to  his  sister 
than  to  him.  Before  the  summer  of  1 795  was  over,  their 
plans  were  made.  In  September  she  was  still  at  Mill- 
house,  near  Halifax.  Where  and  how  her  brother  spent 
his  time  after  the  death  of  Raisley  Calvert,  there  is  very 
little  to  show.  I  believe  he  returned  to  London  and 
remained  there  trying  in  vain  to  write.  In  her  letter 
of  September  2,  1795,  to  Jane  Pollard,  who  by  this  time 
had  become  Mrs.  Marshall,  Miss  Wordsworth,  referring 
to  her  brother,  says:  "  Living  in  the  unsettled  way  in 
which  he  has  hitherto  lived  in  London  is  altogether  un- 
favourable to  mental  exertion." 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  GODWIN  CIRCLE 

From  January  to  September,  1795,  Wordsworth  is  as 
completely  lost  to  sight  as  if  he  had  been  locked  up  in 
Newgate  or  had  returned  to  France.  There  is  a  gap  of 
sixteen  months  in  the  published  letters  of  his  sister,  and 
of  nearly  eleven  months  in  his  own.  This  is  very 
strange,  for  not  only  had  he  a  large  family  connection 
of  educated  persons,  and  not  only  was  he  already  the 
author  of  two  volumes  of  verse,  but  his  character  was 
energetic,  and  his  ambitions  inclined  him  towards  public 
life.  Yet  in  passing  over  this  period,  almost  all  that  his 
first  biographer  remarks  is  :  L»  vi/J 

"  He  had  a  good  deal  of  Stoical  pride,  mingled  with 
not  a  little  Pelagian  self-confidence.  Having  an  in- 
adequate perception  of  the  necessity  of  divine  grace, 
he  placed  his  hopes  where  they  could  not  stand  ;  and  did 
not  place  them  where,  if  placed,  they  could  not  fall. 
He  sought  for  ideal  perfectibility  where  he  could  not 
but  meet  with  real  frailty,  and  did  not  look  for  peace 
where  alone  it  could  be  found." 

It  is  not  known  where  he  was  or  how  employed  out- 
wardly. But  one  may  safely  infer  something  of  his 
mood  and  the  direction  of  his  thoughts  during  those 
veiled  months.  For  when  he  reappears  there  is  a  new  / 
firmness  in  his  tone,  as  of  one  who  has  made  renuncia- 
tions, and  thereby  taken  a  step  towards  finding  himself. 
He  is  confirmed  in  his  disapproval  of  the  war,  and  his 
feelings  now  seem  more  solidly  based  on  philsosophical 
principles.  Sufficient  proof  of  this  assertion  will  be 
found  in  "  The  Borderers,"  composed  in  1795-96,  the 
thirteenth   book  of  "  The   Prelude,"  and  his   letters    to 

251 


y 


252  THE  GODWIN  CIRCLE  [chap,  xi 

Francis  Wrangham  and  Mathews  immediately  after  the 
long  silence.  Furthermore,  in  the  "  Lines  left  upon  a 
Seat  in  a  Yew-tree  "  there  is  heard  a  note  which  is 
quite  rare  in  Wordsworth's  poetry,  a  note  of  personal 
resentment  for  the  world's  neglect,  its  failure  to  appre- 
ciate him  and  his  ideals.  Although  he  told  Miss  Fen- 
wick  that  they  were  composed  in  part  at  school  at 
Hawkshead,  it  is  impossible  to  believe  that  their  actual 
turn,  their  indwelling  sentiment,  and  their  best  qualities, 
can  be  traced  farther  back  than  1795.  In  no  other  of 
his  early  poems  do  we  find  a  line  so  characteristic  of 
Wordsworth  in  his  maturity,  so  certainly  indicative  of 
great  poetic  genius,  as  the  last  of  these  three: 

Yet,  if  the  wind  breathe  soft,  the  curling  waves, 
That  break  against  the  shore,  shall  lull  thy  mind 
By  one  soft  impulse  saved  from  vacancy. 

None  of  his  poems  written  before  1795  contains  a  line 
equal  in  magical  felicity  to 

The  stone-chat,  or  the  glancing  sand-piper. 

To  have  uttered  that  particular  combination  of  sounds 
was  to  have  made  a  fresh  advance  in  English  versifica- 
tion, although,  strange  to  say,  Wordsworth  changed  it 
in  the  edition  of  181 5,  thereby  drawing  a  protest  from 
Charles  Lamb.  The  passage  of  this  poem  which,  under 
cover  of  allusion  to  an  imaginary  person  already  dead, 
is  probably  autobiographical,  and  gives  us  a  picture  of 
Wordsworth  in  1795,  is  as  follows: 

He  was  one  who  owned 
No  common  soul.     In  youth  by  science  nursed, 
And  led  by  nature  into  a  wild  scene 
Of  lofty  hopes,  he  to  the  world  went  forth 
A  favoured  Being,  knowing  no  desire 
Which  genius  did  not  hallow ;  'gainst  the  taint 
Of  dissolute  tongues,  and  jealousy,  and  hate, 
And  scorn, — against  all  enemies  prepared, 
All  but  neglect.     The  world,  for  so  it  thought, 
Owed  him  no  service;  wherefore  he  at  once 
With  indignation  turned  himself  away, 
And  with  the  food  of  pride  sustained  his  soul 
In  solitude. 


1795]  PHILOSOPHIC  DISCIPLINE  253 

This  is  no  less  than  an  epitome  of  his  life  before  his 
reunion  with  Dorothy  and  his  meeting  with  Coleridge,  the 
brother  of  his  soul.  The  strain  is  Byronic.  Shelley,  too, 
sounded  a  like  complaint.  Wordsworth  was  too  strong, 
and  also,  it  must  be  said,  he  became  too  happy,  to  linger 
in  such  a  mood. 

He  rose  above  it  by  establishing  his  life,  for  a  time,  upon 
the  principles  of  William  Godwin.  This  is  a  fact  which 
no  biographer  of  the  poet  has  ventured  to  deny,  though 
many  attempts  have  been  made  to  minimize  its  impor- 
tance. I  am  acquainted  with  no  account  of  Words- 
worth's life  that  does  justice  to  the  strength  and  attrac- 
tiveness of  the  philosophy  upon  which  he  disciplined 
his  powerful  reasoning  faculties,  and  to  which  he  gave  ty 
brave  and  stubborn  allegiance  from  his  twenty-third  to 
his  twenty-ninth  year.  When  one  considers  how,  in  the 
lives  of  nearly  all  poets,  the  third  decade  stands  pre- 
eminent as  a  formative  and  productive  period,  it  seems 
impossible  to  exaggerate  the  value  of  Godwin's  ideas  to 
Wordsworth.  And  Wordsworth  is  admitted  to  be  a 
great  philosophical  poet.  Yet  all  his  biographers  have 
termed  Godwin's  system  "  preposterous."  Words- 
worth, even  when  he  renounced  it,  fully  appreciated 
its  compulsive  appeal.  And  for  at  least  three  or  four 
years  it  claimed  both  his  intellectual  assent  and  his 
active  support.  He  went  to  great  lengths.  If  Words- 
worth had  published  his  Reply  to  Bishop  Watson,  he 
would  have  been  liable  to  prosecution  on  a  charge  of 
sedition.  It  is  amazing  that  Godwin  escaped  being 
imprisoned  or  exiled  for  his  "  Enquiry  concerning 
Political  Justice."  But  books  have  their  fates,  and 
this  remarkable  treatise  has  fared  ill,  for  it  was  from  the 
beginning  covered  with  obloquy,  and  probably  no 
literary  or  philosophical  work  of  equal  value  has  been  so 
little  read  in  proportion  to  its  merit.  Such  is  the  force 
of  organized  prejudice.  The  "  patriotic  "  party  were 
not  content  with  crushing  the  democratic  movement; 
they  did  their  best  to  smother  even  the  memory  of  it. 
Not  only  did  they  promptly  check  overt  acts  of  a 
Revolutionary  tendency;  they  entered  into  a  century- 


254  THE  GODWIN  CIRCLE  [chap,  xi 

long  conspiracy  to  suppress  a  number  of  noble  intel- 
lectual works.  Contemptuous  disapproval  was  the 
means  employed,  and  it  succeeded.  The  share  of  God- 
win's "  Political  Justice  "  in  the  thought  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  has  been  inconsiderable,  if  we  set  aside 
its  influence  on  Wordsworth  and  Shelley  and  the 
Utilitarian  school  of  philosophy.  No  other  fact  so 
strikingly  suggests  the  reactionary  character  of  political 
theory  in  that  century.  The  twentieth  seems  to  have 
linked  itself  more  directly  to  the  eighteenth  than  to  the 
nineteenth,  which  lies  between  its  neighbours  like  a 
great  confused  parenthesis.  More  carefully  stated,  the 
truth  may  be  that,  of  two  eternally  opposed  and  equally 
unconquerable  kinds  of  thought,  one,  represented  by 
Locke  and  Hume  and  Godwin,  enjoyed,  towards  the 
close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  a  degree  of  general 
acceptance  which  until  lately  it  has  not  enjoyed  since; 
while  the  other  kind,  eloquently  preached  by  Burke 
and  Carlyle,  and  always  more  openly,  more  officially, 
more  popularly  held,  has  been  for  a  much  longer  time 
dominant.  There  should  be  no  illusions  regarding  the 
comparative  attractiveness  of  these  two  systems.  It  is 
enough  to  observe  that  their  merits  have  seldom  been 
fairly  contrasted. 

Wordsworth,  in  the  years  we  are  considering,  was  a 
disciple  of  Godwin.  This  did  not  mean  the  acceptance 
of  his  master's  political  theory  alone,  but  of  his  system 
as  a  whole.  Godwin  has  this  much  at  least  in  common 
,with  Locke,  that  his  philosophy  is  integral.  It  is 
rigorously  deduced  from  a  few  chief  principles.  Thus 
its  ethics  cannot  be  held  separately  from  its  metaphysics, 
nor  can  its  politics  be  detached  from  its  psychology. 
Although  the  largest  and  the  soundest  parts  of  the 
"  Political  Justice  "  are  devoted  to  ethical  and  political 
considerations,  which  can  hardly  be  distinguished  from 
each  other,  as  it  is  his  dearest  purpose  to  show  they  should 
not  be,  Godwin  insists  just  as  strongly  on  their  de- 
pendence on  his  doctrine  of  knowledge  and  will.  He 
is  a  determinist,  and  the  only  weak  element  of  his  book 
is  the  thinness  of  his  argument  for  necessity.    The  many 


17951  RATIONAL  MORALITY  255 

pleas  in  favour  of  free-will  which  suggest  themselves 
even  to  philosophers,  as  well  as  to  ordinary  thinkers, 
he  almost  wholly  fails  to  take  into  account.  Equally 
dogmatic,  though  not  so  audacious,  because  more 
widely  shared,  is  his  belief  that  experience  is  the  source 
of  all  knowledge.  "  Nothing  can  be  more  incontro- 
vertible," he  asserts,  "  than  that  we  do  not  bring  pre- 
established  ideas  into  the  world  with  us."  Justice,  he 
contends,  is  the  whole  duty  of  man.  And  it  seems  that 
his  criterion  of  justice  is  the  greatest  good  of  the  greatest 
number:  "  utility,  as  it  regards  percipient  beings,  is  the 
only  basis  of  moral  and  political  truth."  Reason  is  the 
only  organ  whereby  men  can  discover  what  is  just :  "  to 
a  rational  being  there  can,"  he  says,  "  be  but  one  rule 
of  conduct,  justice,  and  one  mode  of  ascertaining  that 
rule,  the  exercise  of  his  understanding." 

Intuition  and  every  form  of  mystical  illumination, 
together  with  all  authority,  whether  of  numbers,  an- 
tiquity, institutions,  or  "  inspired  words,"  are  calmly 
set  aside.  Morality  is  a  matter  of  knowledge:  "  the 
most  essential  part  of  virtue  consists  in  the  incessantly 
seeking  to  inform  ourselves  more  accurately  upon  the 
subject  of  utility  and  right."  He  affirms  these  prin- 
ciples unhesitatingly,  and  as  if  they  must,  of  course,  be 
admitted  by  every  thinking  person  to  whom  they  are 
stated  separately,  each  in  its  own  strength.  But  he 
himself  supplies  in  his  practical  illustrations  difficulties 
which  might  not  have  occurred  to  a  less  acute  mind, 
and  a  less  honest  mind  would  not  have  raised.  And 
it  was  upon  these  examples  that  his  opponents  seized. 
For  instance,  since  man  is  a  moral  being  and  all  his  ac- 
tions are  either  just  or  unjust,  he  has  no  rights — i.e.,  no 
moral  options — but  only  duties.  And  therefore  there 
is  no  place  for  deeds  of  gratitude,  for  pardon,  for  par- 
tiality to  friends  or  kindred,  for  vindictive  punishment. 
Moreover,  a  promise  has  no  sanctity,  and  an  oath  is  an 
abomination;  because  "an  individual  surrenders  the 
best  attribute  of  man  the  moment  he  resolves  to  adhere 
to  certain  fixed  principles  for  reasons  not  now  present 
to    his    mind,    but    which    formerly    were."     Marriage, 


256  THE  GODWIN  CIRCLE  [chap,  xi 

accordingly,  falls  under  his  disapproval,  in  so  far  as  it 
is  a  relation  maintained  solely  in  virtue  of  a  promise. 
Creeds  and  similar  fixed  affirmations  of  belief  lose  their 
binding  power,  for,  he  says,  "  If  I  cease  from  the  habit 
of  being  able  to  recall  this  evidence  [that  upon  which 
the  validity  of  a  tenet  depends],  my  belief  is  no  longer  a 
perception,  but  a  prejudice."  Some  of  these  principles 
are  to  be  found  distinctly  echoed  in  Wordsworth's 
/"  Borderers."  Both  that  tragedy  and  the  slightly 
earlier  poem  "  Guilt  and  Sorrow  "  indicate  that  he  was 
also  imbued  with  Godwin's  doctrine  that  "  under  the 
system  of  necessity  the  ideas  of  guilt,  crime,  desert,  and 
accountableness,  have  no  place."  Godwin  declares  that, 
since  the  will  is  not  free,  "  the  assassin  cannot  help  the 
murder  he  commits  any  more  than  the  dagger." 
Punishment,  therefore,  should  be  limited  to  restraining 
the  criminal  from  repeating  his  act  of  injustice,  j) 

It  is  evident  that  a  society  holding  such  views  must 
reject  all  but  the  barest  essentials  of  government. 
Accordingly,  Godwin  insists  that  "  government  is  an 
evil,  an  usurpation  upon  the  private  judgment  and  indi- 
vidual conscience  of  mankind."  This  would  seem  to  be 
downright  anarchism,  and  it  must  be  said  of  Godwin,  as 
Edward  Caird  said  of  Rousseau  :* 

"  His  method  is  always  determined  by  the  indi- 
vidualistic prejudices  of  his  time.  In  morals,  in  poli- 
tics, and  in  religion  alike,  he  goes  back  from  the  complex 
to  the  simple;  and  for  him  the  simple  is  always  the 
purely  individual,  the  subject  apart  from  the  object,  the 
man  apart  from  society.  He  does  not  see  that  in  this 
way  he  is  gradually  emptying  consciousness  of  all  its 
contents,  and  that  of  the  abstract  individual  at  which 
he  must  finally  arrive  nothing  can  be  said." 

But  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  much  of  the  construc- 
tive thought  which  found  expression  in  early  British 
Liberalism  and  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
followed  this  line.  To  many  practical  statesmen,  as 
well  as  to  Rousseau  and  Godwin,  it  seemed  that  the  sole 
function  of  government  was  to  secure  liberty  of  action 

*   "  Essays  on  Literature." 


T795l  "  POLITICAL  JUSTICE"  257 

to  the  individual.  Wordsworth  was  prepared  for  God- 
/win's  uncompromising  enunciation  of  this  principle  by 
^  his  previous  acceptance  of  Rousseau's  doctrine  that 
every  individual  is  by  nature  independent.  Godwin 
never  shrank  from  rigorous  deduction,  and  uttered  his 
thought  as  clearly  as  he  conceived  it.  Stated  less 
dogmatically,  the  same  idea,  of  course,  is  latent  in  the 
writings  of  the  American  Federalists  and  in  Bentham 
and  J.  S.  Mill.  All  these  political  theorists,  having  an 
eye  to  practice,  checked  themselves  halfway.  But 
many  Continental  writers,  of  whom  Tolstoi  is  the  best 
known,  have  gone  as  far  as  Godwin.  Nor  was  Godwin 
himself  afraid  to  be  called  an  anarchist.  "  Where 
anarchy,"  he  says,  "  has  slain  its  hundreds,  despotism 
has  sacrificed  millions  upon  millions."  And  it  cannot 
be  said  that  he  had  not  present  in  his  mind  the  full 
meaning  of  the  term  when  he  thus  wrote,  for"  Political 
Justice  "  was  published  in  1793,  the  preface  being  dated 
January  7  of  that  year.  It  is  doubtful  whether  Words- 
worth or  many  other  of  Godwin's  disciples  possessed 
enough  confidence  in  abstract  reasoning  to  follow  him 
to  this  extreme  conclusion.  They  gave  an  eager  assent, 
however,  to  the  less  incisive  and  more  practical  state- 
ment that  government,  as  actually  existing,  "  reverses 
the  genuine  propensities  of  mind,  and,  instead  of 
suffering  us  to  look  forward,  teaches  us  to  look  back- 
ward for  perfection;  it  prompts  us  to  seek  the  public 
welfare,  not  in  innovation  and  improvement,  but  in 
a  timid  reverence."  The  pure  word  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, a  creed  to  which  the  young  Wordsworth  clung 
with  passionate  fervour,  is  condensed  in  a  few 
articles.  They  lie  more  or  less  scattered  in  Godwin's 
"Enquiry."  The  first  concerns  prophecy:  "To  con- 
ceive an  order  of  society  totally  different  from  that 
which  is  now  before  our  eyes,  and  to  judge  of  the  advan- 
tages that  would  accrue  from  its  institution,  are  the 
prerogatives  only  of  a  few  favoured  minds."  The 
second  concerns  prerogative:  "  They  are  the  higher 
orders  of  society  that  find,  or  imagine  they  find,  their 
advantage  in  injustice,  and  are  eager  to  invent  argu- 
1.  17 


258  THE  GODWIN  CIRCLE  [chap,  xi 

merits  for  its  defence."     The  third  concerns  popularit}^, 

or  the  wisdom  of  common  people:  "  The  vulgar  have  no 

such  interest,  and  submit  to  the  reign  of  injustice  from 

habit  only  and  the  want  of  reflection.  ...     A  very  short 

period  is  enough  for  them  to  imbibe  the  sentiments  of 

patriotism  and  liberty."     The  fourth  concerns  property: 

"  My  neighbour  has  just  as  much  right  to  put  an  end 

to  my  existence  with  dagger  or  poison  as  to  deny  me 

that  pecuniary  assistance  without  which  I  must  starve, 

or  as  to  deny  me  that  assistance  without  which  my 

intellectual  attainments  or  my  moral  exertions  will  be 

materially  injured."     The  fifth  concerns  priests  :  "  Their 

prosperity   depends   upon   the   reception   of  particular 

opinions  in  the  world;  they  must  therefore  be  enemies 

to  freedom  of  inquiry ;  they  must  have  a  bias  upon  their 

minds  impressed  by  something  different  from  the  force 

of  evidence."     Every  one  of  these  articles  is  affirmed  by 

Wordsworth,  either  graphically  in  his  early  poems,  or 

dogmatically  in   his   Reply  to   Bishop  Watson,   or  by 

implication  in  his  letters  to  Mathews. 

To  say  that  Godwin  was  lacking  in  historical  feeling 
is  putting  the  case  too  negatively.  It  is  more  correct  to 
say  that  he  chose  not  to  be  hampered  by  history.  He 
regarded  the  present  with  keen  perceptive  powers,  and 
looked  to  the  future.  The  absence  of  a  background  in 
his  picture  of  human  destiny  is.  not  due  to  shallowness 
of  literary  culture,  but  to  a  deliberate  theory.  He  was 
one  of  the  last,  and  certainly  the  clearest,  of  the  philoso- 
phers of  the  Enlightenment  in  the  eighteenth  century. 
And  his  method,  as  regards  the  use  of  history,  is  pre- 
cisely the  method  of  that  whole  great  movement. 

A  peculiarity  of  his  own,  however,  is  that  he  relies 
altogether  upon  his  individual  judgment,  and  not  at  all 
upon  the  collective  judgment  of  his  fellow-men,  which 
he  mistrusts  because  it  has  been  institutionally  organized, 
and  thus  clogged  with  the  weight  of  selfish  advantages. 
And  even  in  his  own  case  he  trusts,  or  professes  to  trust, 
only  his  perceptive  and  logical  powers,  and  not  at  all  his 
affections.  He  has,  however,  by  no  means  succeeded 
in  shutting  out  every  emotional  influence.  To  take 
him  at  his  word  in  this  respect  is  to  do  him  an  injustice. 


i795l  THE  ENLIGHTENMENT  259 

His  principles  are  not  cold-drawn.  There  is  no  fire 
more  intense  than  the  flame  of  pure  intelligence.  It  is 
not  conceivable  that,  without  the  tremor  of  inward 
burning,  a  man  possessed  as  Godwin  was,  with  a  sense 
of  responsibility,  could  write:  "  The  doctrine  of  the 
injustice  of  accumulated  property  has  been  the  founda- 
tion of  all  religious  morality."  The  philosophy  of  the 
Enlightenment  may  well  have  been  too  difficult,  too 
sheer,  for  minds  accustomed  to  beaten  tracks  in  the  broad 
vales  of  thought,  but  it  was  not  wanting  in  emotional 
splendour.  Right  or  wrong,  the  man  who  could  affirm 
that  "  there  must  in  the  nature  of  things  be  one  best 
form  of  government,"  because  "  the  points  in  which 
human  beings  resemble  are  infinitely  more  considerable 
than  those  in  which  they  differ,"  was  moved  by  a  deep 
moral  feeling,  as  well  as  by  the  perception  of  truths 
from  which  most  men  shrink. 

There  was  an  appeal  to  high-souled  youth  in  his  ap- 
parently quiet  statement:  "  It  is  in  the  nature  of  things 
impossible  that  the  man  who  has  determined  with  him- 
self never  to  utter  the  truths  he  knows  should  be  an 
intrepid  and  indefatigable  thinker.  The  link  that  binds 
together  the  inward  and  the  outer  man  is  indissoluble; 
and  he  that  is  not  bold  in  speech  will  never  be  ardent 
and  unprejudiced  in  enquiry."  The  voice  of  Burke, 
pleading  for  reverence  towards  the  past,  utters  no  call 
more  eloquent  and  none  so  inspiring  as  this.  German 
idealism,  to  be  introduced  into  England  presently  by 
Coleridge,  will  teach  perhaps  a  more  aspiring  ambition, 
but  none  so  sane.  Romanticism,  more  alluring  to  the 
artist,  will  lack  something  of  this  moral  dignity.  Not 
till  Emerson  comes,  and  after  him  the  new  leaders  of 
scientific  research,  will  that  clear  tone  be  heard  again. 

Godwinism  soon  fell  into  deep  and  undeserved  dis- 
repute. This  was  not  due  wholly  to  its  peculiar  features, 
some  of  which  were  beyond  the  comprehension  of  prag- 
matical minds,  and  others  objectionable  on  the  very 
grounds  of  practical  utility  to  which  Godwin  sought  to 
refer  his  thinking.  It  was  due  chiefly  to  the  inherent 
imuttractiveness  of  the  whole  philosophy  -  of  the  En- 
lightenment, and  to  the  inauspicious  character  of  the 


260  THE  GODWIN  CIRCLE  [chap,  xi 

times.      Pure   rationalism    can    perhaps    never    be    ex- 
pected to  win  the  favour  of  more  than  a  small  minority, 
even   among   reflective   men.     Its   voice   is   in   no   age 
altogether  silent,  but  the  echoes  nearly  always  come 
back  mingled  with  alien  notes,  the  note  of  Classicism, 
the  note  of  Transcendentalism,  the  note  of  Romanticism. 
That   Godwin's   system   did,   through   Bentham   and 
Mill,  for  a  while  at  all  events,  and  in  a  limited  degree, 
faire  ecole,  is  indeed  remarkable.     The  age,  moreover, 
was  not  propitious.     The  passion  of  patriotism,  lately 
starved    by    the    disapproval    with    which    thoughtful 
Englishmen  viewed   the  conduct  of  their   government 
before  and  during  the  American  War  and  throughout  the 
period  of  State  trials  between  its  disastrous  conclusion 
and  the  opening  of  the  new  French  War  in  1793,  the 
impatient    desire    to   justify    England's    past    and    her 
present  course,  made  men  very  intolerant  of  Godwin's  im- 
perturbable criticism.     This  was  no  time,  they  thought, 
for  reform.     Wordsworth,  one  of  the  first,  as  he  was  the 
greatest    of   its    converts,    adhered    to    the    Godwinian 
system  for  six  years.     He  met  the  passion  of  the  hour 
with  his  own  deep  inward  passion.     He  conquered  love 
of  country  with  love  of  mankind.     He  rebuked  with  a 
reasoned   hatred   of  war  the   elemental   instincts   of  a 
people  in  arms.     For  six  years  his  tenacious  and  in- 
wardly energetic  nature  held  fast  its  own  religion .    Well 
for  him  was  it  that  prudence  bade  him  keep  to  himself 
his  perilous  thoughts.     Men  were  fined,  imprisoned,  and 
deported,  for  remarks  no  more  seditious  and  far  less 
explicit  than  his   Reply  to   Bishop  Watson.     He  was 
unable   or   unwilling,    before    Coleridge   furnished    him 
with  a  more  supple  dialectic  than  his  own,  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  the  obvious  defects  of  Godwinism,  its  in- 
attention to  human  history,  its  blindness  to  the  natural 
world,  its  indifference  to  the  many  irrational  cravings 
of  mankind.     It  is   significant   that  both  Goethe  and 
Wordsworth,  the  greatest  poets  who  crossed  the  thres- 
hold of  the  nineteenth  century,  were  for  a  time  votaries 
in  the  temple  of  rationalism,  a  temple  nobly  bare  and 
generously  open  whether  for  entrance  or  egress,  and 
that  neither  of  them  could  compel  himself  to  remain. 


1795I  JOSEPH  FAWCETT  261 

It  is  well  known  that  in  the  character  of  the  Solitary, 
in  "  The  Excursion,"  Wordsworth  has  combined  traits 
of  several  persons  who  had  aroused  his  interest.  The 
character  was  designed  to  represent  a  Godwinian,  as  the 
poet  conceived  of  such  a  person  in  1814.  In  the  long, 
garrulous  note  dictated  to  Miss  Fenwick  in  1843,  he 
speaks  of  the  Solitary  as  follows : 

"  A  character  suitable  to  my  purpose,  the  elements  of 
which  I  drew  from  several  persons  with  whom  I  had 
been  connected,  and  who  fell  under  my  observation, 
during  frequent  residences  in  London  at  the  beginning 
of  the  French  Revolution.  The  chief  of  these  was,  one 
may  now  say,  a  Mr.  Fawcett,  a  preacher  at  a  dissenting 
meeting-house  at  the  Old  Jewry.  It  happened  to  me 
several  times  to  be  one  of  his  congregation  through  my 
connection  with  Mr.  Nicholson  of  Cateaton  Street,  who 
at  that  time,  when  I  had  not  many  acquaintances  in 
London,  used  often  to  invite  me  to  dine  with  him  on 
Sundays;  and  I  took  that  opportunity  (Mr.  N.  being  a 
dissenter)  of  going  to  hear  Fawcett,  who  was  an  able 
and  eloquent  man.  He  published  a  poem  on  war,  which 
had  a  good  deal  of  merit,  and  made  me  think  more  about 
him  than  I  should  otherwise  have  done.  But  his  Chris- 
tianity was  never  very  deeply  rooted;  and,  like  many 
others  in  those  times  of  like  showy  talents,  he  had  not 
strength  of  character  to  withstand  the  effects  of  the 
French  Revolution,  and  of  the  wild  and  lax  opinions 
which  had  done  so  much  towards  producing  it,  and  far 
more  in  carrying  it  forward  in  its  extremes.  Poor 
Fawcett,  I  have  been  told,  became  pretty  much  such  a 
person  as  I  have  described ;  and  early  disappeared  from 
the  stage,  having  fallen  into  habits  of  intemperance, 
which  I  have  heard  (though  I  will  not  answer  for  the 
fact)  hastened  his  death." 

Poor  Fawcett  indeed,  if  this  were  all.  But  the  aged 
poet's  reminiscences  should  never  be  accepted  without 
scrutiny,  except  in  regard  to  his  own  emotional  life, 
and  happily  we  are  able  to  piece  together,  from  other 
sources,  a  much  more  favourable  account  of  this  person. 
A  patient  search  has  failed  to  discover  anything  deroga- 
tory to  his  character,  and  the  gossip  about  him  which 
Wordsworth  heard  is   only  an  instance  of  the  way  in 


262  THE  GODWIN  CIRCLE  [chap,  xi 

which  men's  reputations  were  assailed  by  those  who 
took  for  granted  that  heterodox  opinions  must  of  neces- 
_sity  spring  from  a  wicked  heart  and  end  in  an  evil  life. 
The  Rev.  Joseph  Fawcett  was  between  thirty-five  and 
forty  years  old  in  1795,  and  had  been  preaching  on 
Sunday  evenings  in  a  Dissenting  church  in  the  Old 
Jewry  since  about  1783.  He  preached  to  large  intelli- 
gent audiences,  upon  whom  he  left  an  impression  of 
originality  and  power.  Among  his  hearers  were  Mrs. 
Siddons,  the  Kembles,  Holcroft,  the  actor  and  dramatist, 
and  perhaps  also  the  comedian  Charles  Mathews,  a 
brother  of  Wordsworth's  most  intimate  friend.  He 
left  the  ministry  in  1795,  and  published  in  that  year  two 
volumes  of  sermons  and  a  poem  on  "  The  Art  of  War," 
printed  for  J.  Johnson.  Of  this  generous  and  humane 
effusion  a  critic  in  The  Gentleman 's  Magazine  for  June, 
l795>  judged  far  less  favourably  than  Wordsworth, 
but  deigned  nevertheless  to  remark:  "  Mr.  F.  deserves 
commendation  for  awakening  the  milder  feelings,  and 
his  expression  will  be  pardoned  for  his  sentiments." 
Two  years  later  Fawcett  published  another  long  poem, 
"  The  Art  of  Poetry,"  and  in  1798  appeared  his  collected 
"  Poems,"  including  both  "  The  Art  of  War,"  now 
entitled  "  Civilized  War,"  and  "  The  Art  of  Poetry," 
this  volume  also  being  printed  for  Johnson.  In  the 
preface  the  author  says  of  himself: 

However  humble  a  place  in  the  scale  of  poetical 
excellence  his  readers  shall  ultimately  allot  him,  it  will 
ever  be  a  source  of  proud  satisfaction  to  him  to  remember 
that  the  first  poetical  effort  he  submitted  to  the  public 
eye  was  neither  a  simple  attempt  to  amuse  the  fancy  nor 
to  soothe  the  heart,  but  an  indignant  endeavour  to  tear 
away  the  splendid  disguise  which  it  has  been  the  business 
of  poets  in  all  nations  and  ages  to  throw  over  the  most 
odious  and  deformed  of  all  the  practices  by  which  the 
annals  of  what  is  called  civilized  society  have  been  dis- 
graced." 

The  poem  is  a  noble  piece  of  work  and  shows  an 
enlightened  spirit.  In  "  A  War  Elegy,"  which  follows, 
Fawcett,    like    Wordsworth    and    Coleridge,    illustrates 


17951  THE  NEW  PATRIOTISM  263 

the  evils  of  war  with  a  concrete  instance.  In  his  poem 
"  On  Visiting  the  Gardens  of  Ermenonville,"  he  pays 
a  hearty  tribute  to  Rousseau.  In  the  Advertisement  to 
his  "  Ode  on  the  Commemoration  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, in  the  Champ  de  Mars,  July  14,  1792,"  he  declares 
that  he  witnessed  the  ceremonies  described.  In  "  The 
Art  of  Poetry  "  he  gives  a  satirical  recipe  for  a  poem  of 
the  new,  Romantic  type : 

E'en  listless  fair  ones  shall  from  languor  wake, 
And  o'er  the  lines  with  pleasing  terror  shake, 
If  there  the  lovely  tremblers  may  peruse 
The  harsh,  coarse  horror  of  a  German  muse. 
Let  hideous  Superstition  form  the  base 
On  which  the  wildly  dismal  tale  you  raise: 
Let  ghastliest  forms,  pale  ghosts,  and  goblins  grim 
Form  of  your  verse  the  terrible  sublime  ! 

His  character  as  a  Godwinian  is  plainly  stamped 
upon  his  "  Sermons  delivered  at  the  Sunday  Evening 
Lectures  for  the  Winter  Season,  at  the  Old  Jewry, ">  as 
may  be  seen  from  some  of  the  titles,  as,  for  example, 
"  Right  and  Wrong  Judgment  the  Origin  of  Virtue  and 
Vice."  Another,  entitled  "  Christianity  vindicated  in 
not  particularly  inculcating  Friendship  and  Patriotism," 
is  a  truly  great  and  brave  sermon,  in  which  he  says : 

"  Friendship  and  Patriotism,  so  far  as  they  stand  dis- 
tinguished from  general  humanity  and  philanthropy,  so 
far  as  we  consider  only  what  is  peculiar  to  them,  although 
the  more  passionate  operations  of  them  may  have  cap- 
tivated the  popular  imagination,  yet  if  examined  with  a 
cool  and  sober  eye  will  appear  not  to  possess,  strictly 
speaking,  any  moral  beauty,  and  therefore  not  to  have 
merited  a  place  among  the  precepts  of  him  who  came  to 
inculcate  simply  pure  religion  and  morality  upon  man- 
kind. .  .  .  Social  virtue  consists  not  in  the  love  of  this 
or  the  other  individual  or  body  of  individuals,  but  in 
the  love  of  man." 

Another  sermon,  "  On  the  Respect  that  is  Due  to  all 
Men,"  is  thoroughly  equalitarian. 

Among  Fawcett's  poems  there  is  one,  consisting  of 
seven    stanzas,    entitled    "Louisa:    a    Song."     Words- 


264  THE  GODWIN  CIRCLE  tcHAP.  xi 

worth  had  it  in  memory,  and  was  probably  alluding  to 
it  consciously,  when  he  wrote  his  own  verses  beginning 
"  I  met  Louisa  in  the  shade."     Fawcett's  first  stanza  is — 

As  with  Louisa  late  I  sat, 

In  yonder  secret  grove, 
How  fondly  did  each  bosom  beat, 

And  pour  its  tale  of  love  ! 

Fawcett's  "  War  Elegies  "  were  published  in  1801, 
three  years  before  his  death,  which  occurred  at  Hedge- 
grove,  near  Watford,  in  Hertfordshire.  The  writer 
of  his  obituary  in  The  Gentleman's  Magazine  dismissed 
him  from  life  somewhat  contemptuously  as  "  an  eccen- 
tric character,"  and  referred  slightingly  to  his  works 
as  being  full  of  the  "  spirit  of  invention  and  bombast." 
But  from  Fawcett's  inventive  spirit  so  original  a  thinker 
as  William  Godwin  had  received  some  of  his  most 
striking  ideas.  He  had  known  Fawcett  for  nearly 
twenty  years  before  the  date  of  "  Political  Justice,"  and 
declared  him  to  be  one  of  the  four  principal  oral  in- 
structors to  whom  he  felt  his  mind  indebted  for  improve- 
ment, the  others  being  Thomas  Holcroft,  George  Dyson, 
and  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge.  "Mr.  Fawcett's  modes 
of  thinking,"  he  wrote,*  "  made  a  great  impression 
upon  me,  as  he  was  almost  the  first  man  I  had  ever 
been  acquainted  with  who  carried  with  him  the  sem- 
blance of  original  genius."  One  of  Fawcett's  favourite 
topics,  Godwin  declared,  "  was  a  declamation  against 
the  domestic  affections,  a  principle  which  admirably 
coincided  with  the  dogmas  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  whose 
works  I  had  read  a  short  time  before."  What  Godwin 
means  when  he  refers  in  this  cool  way  to  the  domestic 
affections  will  not  appear  monstrous  to  anyone  who  has 
read  "  Political  Justice."  When  he  asks  the  old  ques- 
tion, "Who  is  my  mother,  or  my  brethren?"  and 
gives  the  old  and  startling  answer,  he  makes  the  sound 
inference,  which  weak  mortality  is  very  slow  to  accept, 
that  domestic  ties  can  never  excuse  unjust  discrimina- 
tion.    No    one    who    has    read    Godwin's   heartbroken 

*  C.  Kegan  Paul,  "  William  Godwin,  his  Friends  and  Contemporaries," 
1896. 


i795l  THE  CANNONIAN  265 

letters  after  the  death  of  his  wife  can  have  any  doubt 
that  his  own  domestic  affections,  in  spite  of  his  austere 
habits  of  seclusion,  were  pure  and  strong. 

The  influence  of  Godwin  on  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge 
has  never  been  satisfactorily  explained  or  sufficiently 
emphasized.  In  his  account  of  his  life  in  1794,  he  says: 
"  It  was  in  the  close  of  this  year  that  I  first  met  with 
Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  my  acquaintance  with  whom 
was  ripened  in  the  year  1 800  into  a  high  degree  of  affec- 
tionate intimacy."  It  appears  that  he  knew  Words- 
worth in  1798.  He  wrote  of  them  in  that  year:  "  They 
are  both  extraordinary  men,  and  both  reputed  men  of 
genius."  But  there  is  every  probability  that  Words- 
worth and  he  had  met  in  1795  or  earlier.  The  Mr. 
Nicholson  with  whom  the  young  poet  was  in  the  habit 
of  dining  on  Sundays  when  in  London  moved  in  Godwin's 
circle.  He  is  often  mentioned  in  Godwin's  diary.  He 
belonged  to  a  small  club,  of  which  Thomas  Holcroft  and 
the  actor  Shield  were  members,  called  the  Cannonian, 
after  its  president  and  founder,  Cannon,  an  elderly 
Irishman,  of  bohemian  habits,  who  was  supposed  to 
be  engaged  on  an  edition  of  Tibullus.  At  one  time, 
long  before  Wordsworth's  first  visit  to  London,  Nichol- 
son lived  in  apartments  which  he  rented  from  Holcroft, 
and  the  two  wrote  a  novel  together,  which  appeared  in 
1780  as  "  Alwyn,  or  the  Gentleman  Comedian."  Mrs. 
Siddons's  sister,  the  actress  Elizabeth  Kemble,  after- 
wards Mrs.  WThitelocke,  rented  lodgings  from  Holcroft 
in  the  same  house.  Holcroft's  acquaintance  with 
Godwin  began  in  1786,  and  it  was  he  who  reviewed 
"  Political  Justice  "  in  The  Monthly  Review,  in  1793. 
Before  that  work  appeared,  Godwin  discussed  its 
principles,  "  at  occasional  meetings,"  with  Nicholson, 
Holcroft,  Joel  Barlow  the  American  poet,  Mackintosh, 
the  author  of  "  Vindiciae  Gallicae,"  and  David  Williams, 
the  anonymous  author  of  "  Lessons  to  a  Young  Prince," 
an  extremely  revolutionary  book.  In  Godwin's  diary 
the  name  of  Nicholson  occurs  several  times  in  brief 
remarks,  such  as  "  Sup  at  Nicholson's,  talk  of  ideal 
unity."    Similar  remarks  occur  in  Holcroft's  "  Memoirs," 


266  THE  GODWIN  CIRCLE  [chap,  xi 

showing  that  he,  too,  was  intimate  with  Nicholson. 
Godwin  dined  frequently  at  the  hospitable  board  of 
Johnson,  the  publisher  of  "  An  Evening  Walk  "  and 
v/  Descriptive  Sketches."  Among  the  persons  he  met 
there  were  Thomas  Paine  and  Mary  Wollstonecraft, 
who  was  employed  by  Johnson  as  a  reader  and  trans- 
lator. On  December  n,  1794,  Robert  Lovell,  the 
friend  of  Coleridge  and  Southey,  wrote  to  Holcroft 
about  their  scheme  of  emigrating  to  America,  and  asked 
to  be  remembered  to  Nicholson  and  Godwin.  This  was 
only  ten  days  after  Holcroft 's  discharge  from  Newgate 
Prison,  having  been  declared  not  guilty  of  the  charge 
of  treason  for  which  he  had  lain  committed  since  October. 
Nicholson  was  a  teacher  of  mathematics  and  natural 
science,  and  a  writer  of  books  on  chemistry.  The  name 
of  Cateaton  Street,  where  Wordsworth  visited  him,  has 
disappeared  from  the  map  of  London.  It  ran  westward 
from  the  northern  extremity  of  Old  Jewry,  and  is  now 
called  Gresham  Street.  From  Nicholson's  house  to 
Fawcett's  chapel  was  only  a  step.  To  these  curious 
affiliations  may  be  added  the  fact  that  Nicholson  was 
foreign  agent  for  Thomas  Wedgwood,  the  friend  and 
patron  of  Coleridge,  and  that  Basil  Montagu,  of  whom 
we  shall  hear  presently  in  connection  with  the  Words- 
worths,  was  a  member  of  this  circle  of  political  and 
religious  radicals.* 

The  most  extensive  notice  of  Fawcett  by  a  contem- 
porary is  that  of  William  Hazlitt  in  1810,  which  is  as 
follows,  and  makes  a  very  different  impression  from  that 
of  Wordsworth's  remarks  to  Miss  Fenwick: 

"It  was  he  who  delivered  the  Sunday  evening  lec- 
tures at  the  Old  Jewry,  which  were  so  popular  about 
twenty   years   ago.     He   afterwards  retired   to    Hedge- 

*  In  Kent's  "  London  Directory,"  1793,  I  find  "  Sam  Nicholson  and 
Co.,  Haberdashers,  15,  Cateaton-st."  According  to  an  obituary  notice  in 
The  Gentleman's  Magazine,  Vol.  LXXXV.,  p.  570,  William  Nicholson,  the 
conductor  of  The  Philosophical  Journal,  died  May  21,  18 15,  in  Charlotte 
Street,  Bloomsbury,  and  in  a  longer  account  of  him  in  Vol.  LXXXVI., 
p.  70,  we  learn  that  he  was  living  in  1792  in  Red  Lion  Square.  He  had 
been  engaged  on  the  Continent  as  the  Wedgwoods'  commercial  agent, 
and  "  translated  from  the  French  with  great  facility." 


i795]  NICHOLSON  AND  HOLCROFT  267 

grove  in  Hertfordshire.  It  was  here  that  I  first  became 
acquainted  with  him,  and  passed  some  of  the  pleasantest 
days  of  my  life.  He  was  the  friend  of  my  early  youth. 
He  was  the  first  person  of  literary  eminence  whom  I  had 
then  known ;  and  the  conversations  I  had  with  him  on 
subjects  of  taste  and  philosophy  (for  his  taste  was  as 
refined  as  his  powers  of  reasoning  were  profound  and 
subtle)  gave  me  a  delight,  such  as  I  can  never  feel  again. 
The  writings  of  Sterne,  Fielding,  Cervantes,  Richardson, 
Rousseau,  Godwin,  Goethe,  etc.,  were  the  usual  subjects 
of  our  discourse,  and  the  pleasure  I  had  had  in  reading 
these  authors  seemed  more  than  doubled.  Of  all  the 
persons  I  have  ever  known,  he  was  the  most  perfectly 
free  from  every  taint  of  jealousy  or  narrowness.  Never 
did  a  mean  or  sinister  motive  come  near  his  heart.  He 
was  one  of  the  most  enthusiastic  admirers  of  the  French 
Revolution;  and  I  believe  that  the  disappointment  of 
the  hopes  he  had  cherished  of  the  freedom  and  happi- 
ness of  mankind  preyed  upon  his  mind  and  hastened  his 
death."* 

It  seems,  then,  from  these  bits  of  evidence,  that 
during  his  various  sojourns  in  London  between  January, 
1793,  and  September,  1795,  amounting  in  all  to  many 
months,  Wordsworth  lived  in  at  least  occasional  connec- 
tion with  a  circle  that  included  Godwin,  Nicholson, 
Fawcett,  Holcroft,  Shield,  the  Kembles,  William 
Mathews,  and  perhaps  his  brother  Charles,  Johnson 
the  bookseller,  Thomas  Paine,  Mary  Wollstonecraft, 
Robert  Lovell,  Basil  Montagu,  and  indirectly  Cole- 
ridge, Southey,  and  the  Wedgwoods.  This  is  not  to  j/ 
say  that  he  was  acquainted  at  any  one  time  with  all 
these  persons.  In  those  years,  however,  the  entire 
number  were  more  or  less  in  communication  with  one 
another.  The  influence  of  Godwin  was  dominant 
among  them.  Some  of  them  were  under  the  ban  of 
public  censure  for  holding  democratic  principles.  They  \\/ 
sympathized  with  the  French  Revolution ;  they  opposed  J 
the  war.  After  the  transportation  of  Muir,  Palmer, 
Margarot,  Skirving,  and  Gerrald,  the  banishment  of 
Paine,  and  Dr.  Priestley's  emigration  to  America,  the 
centre  of  political  disaffection  was  to  be  found  some- 

*   William  llazlitt's  "  Life  of  Holcroft,"  p.  171,  London,  1902. 


s/i 


268  THE  GODWIN  CIRCLE  [chap,  xt 

where  within  this  circle.  More  and  more,  as  the  Revolu- 
tion went  to  extremes,  and  the  military  success  of  France 
exasperated  and  consolidated  English  patriotism,  the 
possession  of  extreme  democratic  ideals  was  narrowed 
down  to  members  of  this  group,  so  far  as  the  intellectual 
society  of  England  was  concerned.  The  independence 
of  character  and  the  confidence  in  rational  deduction 
which  made  them  radical  in  politics  had  the  same  effect 
in  religion.  Several  of  them  were  professed  Unitarians; 
and  active  in  the  propagation  of  their  faith.  They  were 
feared  and  denounced  as  free-thinkers  no  less  than  as 
levellers.  A  very  well-defined  line  was  drawn  around 
them.  Wordsworth  could  not  have  associated  with 
./  them  without  being  considered  by  his  family  to  have 
definitely  taken  their  side  in  all  respects.  He  never 
maintained  a  lively  intercourse  with  many  acquaintances 
at  once.  If  he  was  at  all  intimate  with  the  revolutionary 
group  in  London,  they  probably  absorbed  nearly  all  his 
social  activity  for  the  time.  And  it  is  plain  that  what- 
ever use  he  may  have  made  in  "  The  Excursion  "  of 
reminiscences  of  Fawcett,  it  was  sympathy,  not  vagrant 
curiosity,  that  drew  him  to  the  meeting-house  in  Old 
Jewry,  and  a  deep  intellectual  interest  that  made  him 
a  student  of  Godwin.  Not  "  The  Excursion,"  nor  even 
"  The  Prelude,"  but  "  Guilt  and  Sorrow,"  "  The  Con- 
vict," and  "The  Borderers,"  provide  the  direct  reflec- 
tion of  his  mood  in  1 795 . 

It  is  possible  also  that  Wordsworth  first  heard  through 
Holcroft  or  Godwin,  early  in  1795,  of  the  arrangements 
being  made  between  Coleridge,  Southey,  Lovell,  and 
one  or  two  other  young  men,  to  migrate  to  America  and 
establish  a  philosophical  community.*     As  we  have  seen, 

*  Some  of  the  stages  of  this  enterprise  are  to  be  seen  in  Southey 's 
correspondence,  beginning  with  the  Easter  Sunday,  1793,  when  he  tramped 
away  from  Oxford  with  Milton's  "  Defence  "  in  his  knapsack,  wishing  he 
had  the  pen  of  Rousseau.  In  a  letter  to  H .  W.  Bedford,  written  at  Bristol, 
November  13,  1793,  he  mentions,  as  a  mere  speculation,  going  to  America. 
On  December  14,  and  again  later  in  the  month,  he  refers  to  the  project,  in 
letters  to  G.  Bedford.  Coleridge  came  over  to  Oxford  in  June,  1794,  and 
met  Southey,  who  wrote  to  Grosvenor  Bedford  an  enthusiastic  account  of 
his  new  acquaintance,  June  12.  Cuthbert  Southey,  in  Vol.  I.,  p.  211,  of 
Southey's  "  Letters,"  gives  the  names  of  the  proposed  company  as  in- 


i795l  SUSQUEHANNA  SETTLEMENT  269 

Lovell  had  written  about  this  plan  to  Holcroft  in  the 
preceding  December.  The  idea  was  not  without  ex- 
ample. Dr.  Priestley's  withdrawal  from  mob  violence 
and  calumny  in  England  to  the  peaceful  shores  of  the 
Susquehanna  was  much  discussed  in  the  public  prints. 
The  Gentleman's  Magazine  for  June,  1795,  contained  the 
following  notice,  which  would  naturally  arouse  a 
romantic  interest : 

"  There  is  a  colony  established  not  far  from  the  Sus- 
quehanna River,  in  America,  by  a  class  of  wealthy 
Frenchmen,  who  formerly  distinguished  themselves  in 
the  Constituent  Assembly  of  France,  but  were  prudent 
enough  to  retire  in  time  with  their  families  and  property ; 
among  them  are  Noailles,  Talon,  Blacon,  Talleyrand, 
and  other  of  the  ci-devant  noblesse:  they  have  relin- 
quished their  titles,  and  have  domesticated  here  in  the 
most  social  manner.  Their  little  settlement  is  called 
French  Town.  The  tavern  is  kept  by  an  officer  who 
was  formerly  le  baron  Beaulieu  !" 

The  settlement  here  referred  to  was  made  at  Asylum, 
in  what  is  now  Bradford  County,  Pennsylvania.  It  was 
visited  in  May,  1795,  by  La  Rochefoucauld- Lian court, 
who  described  it  minutely  in  the  first  volume  of  his 
"  Voyage  en  Amerique."  He  made  his  way  thither, 
along  the  Susquehanna,  after  visiting  the  home  of  Dr. 
Priestley,  at  Northumberland.  Asylum  had  been  estab- 
lished about  fifteen  months  before,  on  land  purchased 
through  the  agency  of  the  great  proprietors,  Morris  and 
Nicholson.  Talon  and  Noailles  had  come  to  Pennsyl- 
vania by  way  of  England.  Among  the  settlers  were 
M.  de  Blacons,  formerly  a  deputy  to  the  Constituent 
from  Dauphine,  and  M.  Colin,  formerly  M.  l'Abbe  de 
SeVigny,  Priest-Archdeacon  of  Toul,  who  were  partners, 
and  kept  a  store  in  the  wilderness;  M.  de  Montul£,  for- 
merly a  cavalry  captain;  M.  de  Bee  de  Lievre,  formerly 

eluding  Southey,  Robert  Lovell,  George  Burnett  of  Balliol,  Robert  Allen 
of  Corpus  Christi,  Oxford,  Edmund  Seward  of  Balliol,  and  S.  T.  Coleridge. 
Later  adherents  were  Favell,  Scott,  and  Le  Grice.  Seward  died  in  1705. 
The  best  and  most  tangible  result  of  the  scheme  is  intimated  in  Southey's 
enthusiastic  remark  to  G.  Bedford,  in  a  letter  from  Bristol,  February  8, 
1795:  "  Coleridge  is  writing  at  the  same  table;  our  names  are  written  in 
the  book  of  destiny  on  the  same  page." 


270  THE  GODWIN  CIRCLE  [chap.xi 

a  canon,  now  a  storekeeper;  the  Messieurs  de  la  Roue, 
old  army  officers;  M.  de  Noailles,  of  San  Domingo; 
M.  d'Andelot,  of  Franche-Comte,  an  ex-officer;  M.  du 
Petit-Thouars,  an  old  naval  officer,  with  a  remarkable 
record  for  adventure  and  suffering;  and  several  other 
ecclesiastics,  merchants,  and  nobles.  Thomas  Twining, 
an  Englishman,  in  his  "  Travels  in  America,"  says  that 
he  met  the  Count  de  Noailles,  Count  Tilley,  and  Volney, 
at  the  house  of  Mr.  Bingham,  in  Philadelphia,  in  1795, 
and  that  he  saw  walking  in  Chestnut  Street,  Philadelphia, 
"  a  tall  gentleman  in  a  blue  coat,  pointed  out  as  M.  Tal- 
leyrand."* There  were  several  French  ladies  of  high 
rank  and  good  education  among  the  refugees  on  the 
Susquehanna,  and  a  spirit  of  cheerful  adventure  per- 
vaded the  community.  There  can  be  scarcely  any  doubt 
that  our  young  English  collegians  had  their  thoughts 
directed  to  America  by  hearing  or  reading  some  account 
of  this  colony. 

Public  interest  in  Dr.  Priestley's  settlement  at  North- 
umberland in  Pennsylvania  was  very  lively.  For  many 
jrears  he  had  been  the  leader  of  the  English  Unitarians, 
and  his  name  had  been  associated,  whether  justly  or  not, 
with  that  of  Paine  as  that  of  a  chief  enemy  of  the 
British  Constitution.  Hundreds  of  attacks  upon  his 
religious  and  political  opinions  had  appeared  within  the 
space  of  half  a  dozen  years,  in  pamphlets,  treatises, 
satirical  poems,  and  printed  sermons.  No  name  ap- 
pears so  frequently  as  his  among  the  book  reviews  of 
The  Gentleman's  Magazine  and  The  Monthly  Review 
between  1789  and  1796.  His  personal  character  was 
not  spared  by  enemies  both  open  and  secret,  though  in 
no  respect  was  its  integrity  really  involved.  Learned 
opponents,  especially  at  Cambridge,  were  never  weary 
of  combining  criticism  of  his  chemical  theories  with 
charges  of  theological  unsoundness.  Now  curiosity  fol- 
lowed him  beyond  the  Atlantic,  while  the  malignity  which 
had  hounded  him  from  England  turned  in  triumph  upon 
those  of  his  way  of  thinking  who  remained .  The  pressure 
of  Conservative  opinion  was  enormous  and  unrelenting. 

*   J.   G.   Rosengarten,    "  French  Colonists   and   Exiles   in   the   United 
States,"  p.  129. 


1795]  TRACES  IN  THE  POEMS  271 

The  poem  "  Guilt  and  Sorrow  "  contains  faint  but 

hardly  mistakable  traces    of   Godwin's  philosophy  and 

of  Fawcett's  teaching.     It  was  not  published  as  a  whole 

until  1845,  when  it  had  been  considerably  altered.     We 

may  judge  of  the  nature  of  the  changes  by  comparing 

the   thirty   stanzas   extracted   from   their   setting,   and 

printed  in  1798  as  "  The  Female  Vagrant,"  with  their 

final  form.     Though  much  of  this  part  was,  according 

to   Wordsworth's   recollection,    composed   in    1791    and 

1792,  the  first  draft  of  the  entire  poem  was  certainly 

not  completed  before  1794,  and  the  work  was  rehandled 

in    1795.     The   action   is   represented   as    taking   place 

during  the  American  War.     The  leading  psychological 

motive  of  the  Sailor's  story,  which  was  composed  later 

than  the  Woman's  story,  is  the  same  as  one  which  was 

presently  to  appear  again  in  "  The  Borderers  " — namely,  v 

that  "  sin  and  crime  are  apt  to  start  from  their  very 

opposite  qualities,"  a  statement  to  which  Godwin  would 

have  given  his  assent,  and  which  is  easily  recognized  as 

conformable   to  his  view  of  human   nature.     Political 

disaffection  shows  itself  in  the  fifth  and  sixth  stanzas 

of  "  The  Female  Vagrant  "  as  originally  printed,  where 

the  legalized  oppression  of  a  poor  man  by  his  neighbour, 

a  rich  land-owner,  is  feelingly  described.     This  passage 

was   afterwards   completely  altered,   being  represented 

finally  by  the  vague  statement : 

But  through  severe  mischance  and  cruel  wrong, 
My  father's  substance  fell  into  decay. 

It  is  significant  that  another  passage  in  the  thirty  stanzas 
originally  printed  as  "  The  Female  Vagrant  "  was  also 
softened  later  into  a  far  less  bitter  indictment  of  society. 
One  of  the  main  sources  of  evil  represented  in  the 
Woman's  story  as  well  as  in  the  Man's  is  war.  In  the 
fragment  printed  in  1798,  the  soldiery  after  whom  the 
poor  creature  has  dragged  herself  through  America  are 
called  ,,     ,       , 

the  brood 

That  lap  (their  very  nourishment)  their  brother's  blood. 

This  was  omitted  in  all  editions  after  1800,  and  if  similar 
features  once  existed  in  the  Sailor's  story,  as  is  probable 


272  THE  GODWIN  CIRCLE  [chap,  xi 

from  the  fact  that  a  like  fate  had  dragged  him  from  his 
peaceful  home  and  made  him  a  man  of  blood  against 
his  will,  they  too  have  been  expunged.     There  remains 
only  an  ironical  reference  to  "  social  Order's  care  for 
wretchedness."     As  "  Guilt   and  Sorrow  "  was  finally 
published,    it    contained    not    a    word    against    capital 
punishment,  but  ends  with  the  poor  Sailor's  voluntary 
submission  to  the  law,  which  avenges  in  his  person  a 
crime  for  which  he  has  atoned,  and  the  guilt  of  which 
has  left  no  stain  upon  his  soul.     Here  was  ample  oppor- 
tunity to  illustrate  Godwin's  doctrine  of  the  injustice  of 
retributive   punishment,    and    especially   of   the   death 
penalty.     If  the  poem  originally  ended  with  such  an 
illustration,  Wordsworth  in   1845  of  course  would  not 
have  let  such  an  ending  stand,  for  he  had  meanwhile, 
as  if  in  expiation  of  former  laxity,  published  fourteen 
sonnets   in  favour  of  capital  punishment  !     But  it  is 
almost  inconceivable  that  the  poem  in  1794  concluded 
with   this  note  of  acquiescence  in   the  wisdom  of  an 
institution  which  not  only  Godwin's  book,  but  events 
in   France,  had   brought  in   question.     The  structural 
lines  of  the  poem  seem  to  converge  towards  something 
which  they  never  reach,  some  passage  of  protest  and 
revolt.     Furthermore,  in  a  letter  to  his  friend  Francis 
Wrangham,  written  November  20,   1795,  Wordsworth 
says  that  he  desired  to  publish  a  poem,  the  object  of 
which  "  is  partly  to  expose  the  vices  of  the  penal  law, 
and  the  calamities  of  war,  as  they  affect  individuals." 
It  expressed  his  sentiments  at  that  time  no  less  than  at 
an  earlier  period,  for  he  declared  that  he  had  recently 
made  alterations  and  additions  so  material  that  it  might 
be  looked  on  almost  as  another  work.     It  is  also  evident 
from  this  letter  that  the  poet  had  recently  been  with 
Wrangham  in  London,  where  he  had  read  to  his  friend 
the  first  draft  of  this  poem,  and  had  planned  others,  of 
a  satirical  character,  dealing  with  political  questions. 
It  would  appear  that  he  delayed  realizing  Dorothy's 
dream  of  a  reunion  and  life  in  a  cottage,  in  order  to  try 
once  more  to  gain  a  livelihood  by  direct  application  of 
his  powers  to  public  affairs.     Perhaps  also  much  time 
was  required  to  secure  and  invest  the  legacy  of  £9°°- 


CHAPTER  XII 

DOROTHY 

Meanwhile  Dorothy  had  to  exercise  patience.  She 
spent  the  spring  and  summer,  and  part  of  the  autumn 
of  1795,  near  Halifax,  with  her  relative  Mrs.  Rawson, 
and  was  more  or  less  in  touch  with  Jane  Pollard,  so  that 
apparently  no  letters  passed  between  them.  Besides,  the 
latter  was  preparing  for  her  marriage  with  Mr.  Marshall, 
which  took  place  before  September  2.  On  that  date  we 
have  the  first  record  of  a  new  life  about  to  begin  for  the 
long-separated  brother  and  sister,  a  life  destined  to  be 
happy  for  them  and  memorable  for  mankind. 

"  I  am  going  now  to  tell  you,"  she  writes  to  Mrs. 
Marshall,  '  what  is  for  your  own  eyes  and  ears  alone; 
I  need  say  no  more  than  this,  I  am  sure,  to  insure  your 
most  careful  secrecy.  Know  then  that  I  am  going  to 
live  in  Dorsetshire.  Let  me,  however,  methodically 
state  the  whole  plan,  and  then,  my  dearest  Jane,  I 
doubt  not  you  will  rejoice  in  the  prospect  which  at  last 
opens  before  me  of  having,  at  least  for  a  time,  a  com- 
fortable home  and  a  house  of  my  own.  You  know  the 
Eleasure  I  have  always  attached  to  the  idea  of  home,  a 
lessing  which  I  so  early  lost  (though  made  up  to  me 
as  well  as  the  most  affectionate  care  of  relatives  not 
positively  congenial  in  pursuits  and  pleasures  could  do, 
and  with  separate  and  distinct  views)."* 

Then  follows  a  careful  computation  of  the  means 
which  will  enable  her  and  William  to  maintain  them- 
selves. The  house  in  which  they  expect  to  live  belongs, 
she  says,  "to  a  Mr.  Pinney,  a  very  rich  merchant  of 
Bristol,"  who  has  given  it  up  to  his  son.     The  latter, 

*  From  a  letter  belonging  to  Mr.  Marshall. 
I.  273  18 


274  DOROTHY  [chap,  xn 

who  has  hitherto  kept  it  open  at  some  expense,  has  now 
offered  to  let  William  occupy  it. 

"  He  is  to  come  occasionally  for  a  few  weeks  to  stay 
with  us,  paying  for  his  board.  William  is  at  present 
staying  with  the  Pinneys  at  Bristol.  The  house  in 
Dorsetshire  is  furnished,  and  has  a  garden  and  orchard. 
I  have  great  satisfaction  in  thinking  that  William  will 
have  such  opportunities  of  studying  as  will  be  advan- 
tageous not  only  to  his  mind,  but  his  purse.  Living  in 
the  unsettled  way  in  which  he  has  hitherto  lived  in 
London  is  altogether  unfavourable  to  mental  exertion." 

Raisley  Calvert's  legacy  is  about  to  be  invested. 
"  William  finds  that  he  can  get  9  per  cent,  for  the 
money  upon  the  best  security.  He  means  to  sink  half 
of  it  upon  my  life,  which  will  make  me  always  com- 
fortable and  independent." 

It  is  probable  that  Wordsworth  was  introduced  to  the 
Pinneys  by  Basil  Montagu,  at  whose  house  in  London 
he  had  been  recently  staying.  He  left  his  books  there, 
and  wrote  to  Mathews  several  weeks  later,  asking  him 
to  have  them  packed.  Montagu,  who  was  of  the  same 
age  as  the  poet,  had  been  with  him  at  Cambridge,  where 
he  resided  till  1795.  He  was  a  natural  son  of  the  Earl 
of  Sandwich,  who  acknowledged  him  and  left  him  a 
legacy,  which,  however,  failed  to  reach  its  destination. 
Montagu  then,  in  1795,  began  to  read  law,  and  engaged 
in  literary  work.  He  was  assisted  later  in  life  by  Words- 
worth's intimate  friend,  Francis  Wrangham,  in  his 
edition  of  Bacon,  and  maintained  a  lifelong  friendship 
with  Coleridge  and  Wordsworth.  His  opinions  were 
always  liberal;  in  his  youth  and  early  manhood  they 
were  extremely  radical.  He  is  said  to  have  been  so 
zealous  a  follower  of  Godwin  that  at  one  time  he  thought 
seriously  of  relinquishing  the  profession  of  a  lawyer  on 
the  ground  that  it  was  injurious  to  society.  His  first 
wife,  whom  he  married  the  year  of  his  graduation,  and 
with  whom  he  kept  house  in  Cambridge  while  Words- 
worth was  still  at  college,  died  in  childbirth,  leaving 
him  a  son  named  Edward.  This  is  the  boy  referred  to 
in  an  "  Anecdote  for  Fathers,"  and  the  lines  beginning 


i795l  BASIL  MONTAGU  275 

"  It  is  the  first  mild  day  of  March."  In  their  letters 
William  and  Dorothy  call  the  child  Basil.  It  is  to  him 
that  she  now  refers  as  follows,  in  estimating  their  means 
of  livelihood :  "  I  think  I  told  you  that  Mr.  Montagu  had 
a  little  boy,  who,  as  you  will  perceive,  could  not  be  very 
well  taken  care  of,  either  in  his  father's  chambers,  or 
under  the  uncertain  management  of  various  friends  of 
Mr.  M.,  with  whom  he  has  frequently  stayed.  Lament- 
ing this,  he  proposed  to  William  to  allow  him  £50  a 
year  for  his  board,  provided  I  should  approve  of  the 
plan."  The  motherly  instincts  of  this  young  woman  of 
twenty-three,  which  had  already  prompted  her  to  keep 
a  little  school  for  her  neighbours'  children  at  Forncett, 
must  have  been  gratified  with  this  prospect.  She  even 
mentions  an  extension  of  the  idea,  for  she  adds : 

"  A  natural  daughter  of  Mr.  Tom  Myers  (a  cousin  of 
mine  whom  I  dare  say  you  have  heard  me  mention)  is 
coming  over  to  England  by  one  of  the  first  ships,  which 
is  expected  in  about  a  month,  to  be  educated.  She  is, 
I  believe,  about  three  or  four  years  old,  and  T.  Myers' 
brother,  who  has  charge  of  her,  has  requested  that  I 
should  take  her  under  my  care.  With  these  two  chil- 
dren, and  the  produce  of  Raisley  Calvert's  legacy,  we 
shall  have  an  income  of  at  least  £1 70  or  £180  per  annum. 
...  As  for  the  little  girl,  I  shall  feel  myself  as  a  mother 
to  her.  ...  It  is  a  painful  idea  that  one's  existence  is 
of  very  little  use,  which  I  have  been  always  obliged  to 
feel  hitherto.  ...  I  shall  have  to  join  William  at  Bristol, 
and  proceed  hence  in  a  chaise  with  Basil  to  Racedown ;  it 
is  fifty  miles.  I  have  received  a  very  polite  invitation 
from  the  Pinneys  to  stay  at  their  house  on  my  road." 

Apparently  the  little  girl  did  not  join  them,  nor  did 
Mr.  Pinney's  thirteen-year-old  boy,  whom  William  hoped 
to  have  as  a  pupil,  and  it  is  not  likely  that  their  income 
was  nearly  as  large  as  she  expected.  But  they  had  the 
cares  and  delights  of  young  Basil's  company  for  several 
years,  and  a  realization  of  this  fact  helps  us  to  under- 
stand many  traits  in  Wordsworth's  early  poems.  He 
keeps  child  nature  constantly  in  view.  The  joyousness, 
the  wonder,  the  power  of  concealment,  the  susceptibility 
to  keen  and  unspeakable  grief,  the  subtle  and  devious 


276  DOROTHY  [chap,  xn 

ways  of  reasoning,  which  are  some  of  the  strongest  traits 
of  childhood,  are  felt  in  many  a  poem  which  Wordsworth 
wrote  before  he  had  children  of  his  own  to  observe. 
One  of  the  deepest  peculiarities  of  his  poetry  is  that  it 
conveys  a  sense  of  having  been  written,  not  for  children, 
but  with  consciousness  of  how  a  child  thinks. 

Miss  Wordsworth's  letter  contains  one  more  remark 
about  her  brother,  which  raises  several  interesting  ques- 
tions. She  says :  "  By  the  bye,  I  must  not  forget  to  tell 
you  that  he  has  had  the  offer  of  ten  guineas  for  a  work 
which  has  not  taken  him  much  time,  and  half  the  profits 
of  a  second  edition  if  it  should  be  called  for."  To  what 
work  does  this  refer  ?  Beyond  reasonable  doubt  to 
"  Guilt  and  Sorrow."  As  finally  published,  this  poem 
contains  666  lines.  We  have  seen  that  it  once  had  a 
different  ending  and  a  different  emphasis.  To  give  a 
well-proportioned  weight  to  its  original  "  objects," 
which  then  were  dear  to  the  poet's  heart,  it  must  have 
been  longer  than  it  is  in  its  present  form.  And  even 
were  this  not  the  case,  the  poem  would  have  been  long 
enough  for  publication  in  a  volume  by  itself.  In  the 
original  editions,  "  An  Evening  Walk  "  contained  only 
430  lines,  and  "  Descriptive  Sketches  "  813.  It  is 
evidently  the  same  work  that  Wordsworth  describes  to 
Wrangham  less  than  three  months  later  in  terms  which 
unmistakably  refer  to  "  Guilt  and  Sorrow."  He  writes 
of  it  then  as  follows:*  "  Have  you  any  interest  with  the 
booksellers  ?  I  have  a  poem  which  I  should  wish  to 
dispose  of,  provided  I  could  get  anything  for  it.  I 
recollect  reading  the  first  draft  of  it  to  you  in  London." 
To  the  same  correspondent  he  writes  on  March  7,  1796: 

"  I  mean  to  publish  a  volume.  Could  you  engage  to 
get  rid  for  me  of  a  dozen  copies  or  more  among  your 
numerous  acquaintance  ?  The  damages  —  to  use  a 
Lancashire  phrase — will  be  four  or  five  shillings  per 
copy.  I  do  not  mean  to  put  forth  a  formal  subscrip- 
tion; but  could  wish,  upon  my  acquaintances  and  their 
acquaintances,  to  quarter  so  many  as  would  insure  me 
from  positive  loss;  further  this  adventurer  wisheth  not." 

*  "Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,"  1. 90:  letter  dated  November  20. 


1795]      FIRST  MEETING  WITH  COLERIDGE       277 

And  on  the  same  day*  Dorothy  writes  to  Mrs.  Mar- 
shall: "  William  is  going  to  publish  a  poem.  The 
Pinneys  have  taken  it  to  the  booksellers."  May  not 
the  explanation  of  these  various  passages  be  that,  while 
at  Bristol  towards  the  end  of  the  summer,  Wordsworth 
showed  what  he  had  written  of  "  Guilt  and  Sorrow,"  or 
spoke  of  it,  to  the  enterprising  and  ambitious  publisher 
Joseph  Cottle;  that  Cottle  made  him  a  tentative  or  con- 
ditional offer;  that  this  was  presently  withdrawn  or  not 
accepted;  that  the  poet  then,  as  his  November  letter 
shows,  thought  of  finding  a  London  publisher;  that 
failing  in  this,  he  sent  it  again  to  Cottle  by  the  Pinneys  ? 
In  any  case,  his  efforts  were  unsuccessful,  though  Cottle 
in  the  end  did  publish  the  extract  known  as  "  The 
Female  Vagrant  "  with  the  other  "  Lyrical  Ballads  "  in 
1798.  The  fact  that  Cottle  in  his  "  Early  Recollec- 
tions; chiefly  relating  to  the  late  Samuel  Taylor  Cole- 
ridge," 1837,  makes  no  reference  to  having  met  Words- 
worth so  early  as  1795,  nor  to  any  negotiations  of  this 
kind,  may  be  explained  by  his  extraordinary  vanity 
and  his  well-known  lack  of  scruple  about  garbling  letters 
and  incidents.  The  pride  of  his  life  was  to  have  been 
one  of  the  early  friends  and  helpers  of  Wordsworth, 
Coleridge,  and  Southey.  He  was  quite  capable  of  sup- 
pressing the  evidence  of  a  false  start  with  one  of  them. 
Had  the  offer  of  ten  guineas  come  from  a  London  pub- 
lisher, Wordsworth,  one  is  almost  forced  to  think,  would 
have  communicated  the  fact  to  WTrangham  when  touch- 
ing on  the  subject  of  his  proposed  volume. 

It  is  strange  that  no  record  of  the  first  meeting  be- 
tween Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  has  come  down  to  us. 
Something  like  the  awe  that  Dante  felt  when  he  pon- 
dered on  the  results  of  the  descent  of  ^Eneas  to  the 
"  immortal  world," 

pensando  1'  alto  effetto 
Ch'  uscir  dovea  di  lui,  e  '1  chi,  e  '1  quale, 

creeps  over  one  who  attempts  to  weigh  the  consequences 
of  that  event.     It  occurred,  I  believe,  somewhat  earlier 

*   Professor  Knight's  guess  at  the  date,  "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth 
Family,"  I.  99,  is  obviously  incorrect. 


278  DOROTHY  [chap,  xii 

than  has  been  generally  supposed.  Bishop  Wordsworth 
in  the  "  Memoirs  "  makes  no  mention  of  it  at  all.  He 
does  not  introduce  Coleridge  upon  the  scene  before  June, 
1797.  J.  Dykes  Campbell,  whose  authority  regarding 
facts  in  the  life  of  Coleridge  was  unsurpassed,  says  with 
his  customary  caution,  in  his  "  Life  of  Coleridge  " :  "  The 
precise  date  of  the  first  meeting  of  Coleridge  and  Words- 
worth has  not  been  ascertained,  but  a  careful  examina- 
tion of  all  the  evidence  available,  published  and  un- 
published, has  all  but  convinced  me  that  it  may  have 
probably  taken  place  as  early  as  September,  1795." 
The  only  strong  objection  to  extending  this  probability 
to  an  even  earlier  date  is  a  remark  written  by  Coleridge 
on  the  margin  of  a  copy  of  his  own  "  Poems  "  of  1797, 
under  a  note  to  his  "  Lines  written  at  Shurton  Bars, 
September,  1795  ":  "This  note  was  written  before  I 
had  ever  seen  Mr.  WTordsworth,  atque  utinam  opera  ejus 
tantum  itoveram."  But  by  the  time  the  volume  was 
published  he  had  seen  Wordsworth,  and  in  any  case  the 
marginal  remark  may  have  been  written  many  years 
afterwards,  and  in  that  case  might  be  inaccurate.* 

As  we  have  already  seen,  Coleridge  was  an  enthusi- 
astic admirer  of  Wordsworth's  poems  in  November, 
I793>  when  he  discussed  them  with  Christopher  Words- 
worth at  Cambridge.  They  had  many  friends  in  com- 
mon. It  was  known  in  the  London  circle  which  Words- 
worth frequented  that  Coleridge,  Southey,  and  other 
young  men,  were  planning  to  emigrate  to  America. 
Their  centre  of  operations  was  Bristol.     The  plan,  which 

*  In  Gillman's  "  Life  of  Coleridge,"  London,  1838,  Vol.  I.,  p.  74,  occurs 
the  following  passage:  "  Some  years  since,  the  late  Charles  Matthews,  the 
comedian  (or,  rather,  as  Coleridge  used  to  observe,  '  the  comic  poet  acting 
his  own  poems  ')  showed  me  an  autograph  letter  from  Mr.  Wordsworth  to 
Matthews'  brother  (who  was  at  that  time  educating  for  the  Bar),  and 
with  whom  he  corresponded.  In  this  letter  he  made  the  following  observa- 
tion: '  To-morrow  I  am  going  to  Bristol  to  see  those  two  extraordinary 
young  men,  Southey  and  Coleridge.'  Mr.  Wordsworth  then  residing  at 
Alfoxden.  They  soon  afterwards  formed  an  intimacy,"  etc.  Of  course, 
Gillman  was  mistaken  in  thinking  Wordsworth  resided  at  Alfoxden  when 
this  letter  was  written.  It  apparently  refers  to  the  first  meeting  of  the 
poets.  Coleridge  and  Southey  were  often  in  Bristol  together  from  January 
to  November,  1795. 


i795]  PANTISOCRACY  279 

came  to  be  known  as  the  Pantisocratic  Scheme,  was 
probably  conceived  in  the  spring  of  1794,  and  matured, 
if  the  wild  scheme  could  ever  be  termed  mature,  during 
a  visit  Coleridge,  then  a  Cambridge  undergraduate, 
made  to  Southey  at  Oxford  in  the  following  summer. 
The  most  trustworthy  account  of  it  is  given  in  a  letter 
from  Southey  to  Cottle  in  1836,  quoted  by  Campbell  in 
his"  Life  of  Coleridge  "  :* 

"  In  the  summer  of  1794  S.  T.  Coleridge  and  Hucks 
came  to  Oxford  on  their  way  into  Wales  for  a  pedestrian 
tour.  Then  Allen  introduced  them  to  me,  and  the 
scheme  was  talked  of,  but  not  by  any  means  determined 
on.  It  was  talked  into  shape  by  Burnett  and  myself, 
when,  upon  the  commencement  of  the  long  vacation, 
we  separated  from  them,  they  making  for  Gloucester, 
he  and  I  proceeding  on  foot  to  Bath.  After  some  weeks, 
S.  T.  C,  returning  from  his  tour,  came  to  Bristol  on  his 
way,  and  slept  there.  Then  it  was  that  we  resolved 
upon  going  to  America,  and  S.  T.  C.  and  I  walked  into 
Somersetshire  to  see  Burnett,  and  on  that  journey  it 
was  that  he  first  saw  Poole.  He  made  his  engagement 
with  Miss  [Sarah]  Fricker  on  our  return  from  this 
journey  at  my  mother's  house  in  Bath,  not  a  little  to 
my  astonishment,  because  he  had  talked  of  being  deeply 
in  love  with  a  certain  Mary  Evans.  I  had  previously 
been  engaged  to  my  poor  Edith  [Fricker].  .  .  .  He 
remained  at  Bristol  till  the  close  of  the  vacation  [?] — ■ 
several  weeks.  During  that  time  it  was  that  we  talked 
of  America.  The  funds  were  to  be  what  each  could 
raise — S.  T.  C.  by  the  Specimens  of  the  Modern  Latin 
Poets,  for  which  he  had  printed  proposals,  and  obtained 
a  respectable  list  of  Cambridge  subscribers  before  I  knew 
him;  I,  by  Joan  of  Arc,  and  what  else  I  might  publish. 
I  had  no  .  .  .  other  expectation.  We  hoped  to  find 
companions  with  money." 

A  much  more  detailed  account,  and  the  earliest  of 
which  I  have  any  knowledge,  is  a  letter  from  Thomas 
Poole    to    a    Mr.    Haskins,    dated    September    2,    1794. 

*  I  have  examined  at  the  British  Museum  "  A  Pedestrian  Tour  through 
North  Wales  in  a  Series  of  Letters,"  by  J.  Hucks,  B.A.;  London,  1795. 
The  author  says  his  companion  wrote  on  a  window-shutter  at  Ross  lines 
beginning  "  Richer  than  misers  o'er  their  countless  hoards."  There  is 
disappointingly  little  else  in  the  small  volume  about  the  wonderful  com- 
panion.    It  has  several  passages  of  democratic,  anti-military  tenor. 


280  DOROTHY  [chap,  xii 

Poole  was  an  energetic  and  wealthy  young  tanner,  of 
democratic  principles,  who  lived  at  Nether  Stowey,  in 
Somerset,  about  thirty-five  miles  from  Bristol:* 

"  Dear  Sir, — I  received  your  obliging  letter  a  day  or 
two  ago,  and  will  with  pleasure  give  you  all  the  informa- 
tion I  can  respecting  the  emigration  to  America  to  which 
you  allude.  But  first,  perhaps,  you  would  like  to  have 
some  idea  of  the  character  of  the  projectors  of  the  scheme. 
Out  of  eight  whom  they  informed  me  were  engaged,  I 
have  seen  but  two,  and  only  spent  part  of  one  day  with 
them ;  their  names  are  Coldridge  and  Southey. 

"  Coldridge,  whom  I  consider  the  Principal  in  the 
undertaking,  and  of  whom  I  had  heard  much  before  I 
saw  him,  is  about  five-and-twenty,  belongs  to  the  Uni- 
versity of  Cambridge,  possesses  splendid  abilities — he  is, 
I  understand,  a  shining  scholar,  gained  the  prize  for  the 
Greek  verses  the  first  or  second  year  he  entered  the 
University,  and  is  now  engaged  in  publishing  a  selection 
of  the  best  modern  Latin  poems  with  a  poetical  transla- 
tion. He  speaks  with  much  elegance  and  energy,  and 
with  uncommon  facility,  but  he,  as  it  generally  happens 
to  men  of  his  class,  feels  the  justice  of  Providence  in  the 
want  of  those  inferior  abilities  which  are  necessary  to 
the  rational  discharge  of  the  common  duties  of  life. 
His  aberrations  from  prudence,  to  use  his  own  expres- 
sion, have  been  great;  but  he  now  promises  to  be  as 
sober  and  rational  as  his  most  sober  friends  could  wish. 
In  religion  he  is  a  Unitarian,  if  not  a  Deist;  in  politicks 
a  Democrat,  to  the  utmost  extent  of  the  word. 

"  Southey,  who  was  with  him,  is  of  the  University  of 
Oxford,  a  younger  man,  without  the  splendid  abilities 
of  Coldridge,  though  possessing  much  information,  par- 
ticularly metaphysical,  and  is  more  violent  in  his  prin- 
ciples than  even  Coldridge  himself.  In  Religion,  shock- 
ing to  say  in  a  mere  Boy  as  he  is,  I  fear  he  wavers 
between  Deism  and  Atheism. 

"  Thus  much  for  the  characters  of  two  of  the  Emigra- 
tors.     Their  plan  is  as  follows  : 

"  Twelve  gentlemen  of  good  education  and  liberal 
principles  are  to  embark  with  twelve  ladies  in  April  next. 

*  I  have  seen  in  the  British  Museum  the  original  letter  of  inquiry  from 
Josiah  Haskins.  As  it  is  dated  September  15,  Poole's  answer  should 
probably  be  dated  September  20.  Haskins  says  he  had  just  heard  through 
Poole's  brother  of  a  scheme  to  emigrate  to  America,  and  desired  further 
details. 


r795]  THE  BRISTOL  GROUP  281 

Previous  to  their  leaving  this  country  they  are  to  have 
as  much  intercourse  as  possible,  in  order  to  ascertain 
each  other's  dispositions,  and  firmly  to  settle  every  regu- 
lation for  the  government  of  their  future  conduct.  Their 
opinion  was  that  they  should  fix  themselves  at — I  do 
not  recollect  the  place,  but  somewhere  in  a  delightful 
part  of  the  new  back  settlements ;  that  each  man  should 
labour  two  or  three  hours  in  a  day,  the  produce  of  which 
labour  would,  they  imagine,  be  more  than  sufficient  to 
support  the  colony.  As  Adam  Smith  observes  that 
there  is  not  above  one  productive  man  in  twenty,  they 
argue  that  if  each  laboured  the  twentieth  part  of  time, 
it  would  produce  enough  to  satisfy  their  wants.  The 
produce  of  their  industry  is  to  be  laid  up  in  common  for 
the  use  of  all ;  and  a  good  library  of  books  is  to  be  col- 
lected, and  their  leisure  hours  to  be  spent  in  study 
liberal  discussions,  and  the  education  of  their  children 
A  system  for  the  education  of  their  children  is  laid  down, 
for  which,  if  this  plan  at  all  suits  you,  I  must  refer  you 
to  the  authors  of  it.  The  regulations  relating  to  the 
females  strike  them  as  the  most  difficult;  whether  the 
marriage  contract  shall  be  dissolved  if  agreeable  to  one 
or  both  parties,  and  many  other  circumstances,  are  not 
yet  determined.  The  employments  of  the  women  are 
to  be  the  care  of  infant  children,  and  other  occupations 
suited  to  their  strength ;  at  the  same  time  the  greatest 
attention  is  to  be  paid  to  the  cultivation  of  their  minds. 
Every  one  is  to  enjoy  his  own  religious  and  political 
opinions,  provided  they  do  not  encroach  on  the  rules 
previously  made,  which  rules,  it  is  unnecessary  to  add, 
must  in  some  measure  be  regulated  by  the  laws  of  the 
State  which  includes  the  district  in  which  they  settle. 
They  calculate  that  each  gentleman  providing  £125  will 
be  sufficient  to  carry  the  scheme  into  execution.  Finallv, 
every  individual  is  at  liberty,  whenever  he  pleases,  to 
withdraw  from  the  society."* 

By  the  autumn  of  1795  the  Pantisocratic  dream  had  ( 
almost  faded  away.  The  adventurers  consumed  part 
of  their  energies  in  writing  a  drama,  "  The  Fall  of  Robe- 
spierre," which  Coleridge,  Southey,  and  Lovell  planned, 
and  the  first  two  wrote.  Coleridge  returned  to  Cam- 
bridge, but  left  college  in  December  without  taking  his 
degree.     Forgetting    both    the    Susquehanna    and    his 

*   Mrs.  Sandford,  "  Thomas  Poole  and  his  Friends,"  I.  96. 


282  DOROTHY  [chap,  xii 

Sarah,  he  sought  out  his  old  schoolmate  Charles  Lamb, 
and  was  enjoying  the  freedom  of  bachelorhood  and  the 
conveniences  of  civilization  at  the  Angel  tavern  or"  the 
little  smoky  room  at  the  Salutation  and  Cat,"  where, 
as  his  companion  wrote,  they  "  sat  together  through 
the  winter  nights,  beguiling  the  cares  of  life  with  Poesy." 
But  Southey  went  to  London  to  look  for  him,  and 
brought  him  back  to  his  lady  at  Bristol.  Here  they 
both,  with  Burnett,  another  of  the  band,  lodged  together 
and  once  more  began  to  think  seriously  of  America. 
Lovell  was  the  first  to  take  a  practical  step,  by  marry- 
ing Mary  Fricker.  Coleridge  made  a  little  money  by 
lecturing.  Joseph  Cottle,  himself  only  twenty-four 
years  old,  and  a  poet,  but  not  a  friend  of  Pantisocracy, 
helped  the  comrades  to  pay  their  bills  by  advancing 
money  on  poems  written  and  unwritten. 

The  friendship  between  Coleridge  and  Southey  be- 
came strained  before  the  middle  of  1795.  It  was  at 
this  time,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  that  Wordsworth  met 
them.  Their  fortunes  were  desperate.  Their  rose- 
coloured  vision  had  faded  away.  The  great  contrast 
between  their  characters  had  begun  to  show  itself. 
And  although  they  kept  their  engagements  and  espoused 
each  of  them  a  Miss  Fricker,  marriage  was  no  longer 
a  move  towards  the  communal  life,  with  two  or  three 
hours  a  day  of  farming,  on  the  banks  of  the  Susquehanna. 
In  estimating  the  likelihood  that  Wordsworth,  if  he 
remained  any  time  at  all  in  Bristol,  would  encounter 
this  band  of  young  men,  several  facts  must  be  taken 
into  consideration.  They  were  persons  of  marked 
peculiarity.  Cottle,  in  his  very  natural  desire  to 
provide  a  market  for  their  literary  efforts,  would  be 
sure  to  talk  about  them.  Coleridge  was  "  a  noticeable 
man  "  and  gave  public  lectures.  Southey  was  a  native 
of  Bristol  and  well  connected.  They  were  all  very 
young — Southey  was  twenty-one  in  August.  Their 
peculiarities  of  manner,  dress,  and  especially  of  opinion, 
must  have  made  them  objects  of  curiosity  or  alarm 
to  the  heavy-going  merchants  of  that  rich  port,  which 
still   profited   largely   by   the   slave-trade.     The   town, 


i795]  RACEDOWN  283 

including    the    suburbs,    had    only    about    60,000    in- 
habitants. 

It  was  in  August  that  Coleridge  took  a  cottage 
at  Clevedon,  on  the  Bristol  Channel,  about  twelve 
miles  south-west  of  the  city.  In  his  volume  of  Poems 
published  in  1796,  the  lines  entitled  "  The  Eolian  Harp  " 
are  declared  to  have  been  "  composed  August  20,  1795, 
at  Clevedon,  Somersetshire."  But  as  he  was  not 
married  until  October  4,  it  is  not  likely  that  he  removed 
thither  before  that  date.  Coleridge's  daughter  Sara, 
seeking  information  as  to  the  time  of  the  first  meeting 
of  the  poets,  received  the  following  answer  from  Mrs. 
Wordsworth,  November  7,  1845:* 

"  With  my  husband's  tender  love  to  you  he  bids  me 
say,  in  reply  to  a  question  you  have  put  to  him  througli 
Miss  Fenwick,  that  he  has  not  as  distinct  a  remembrance 
as  he  could  wish  of  the  time  when  he  first  saw  your 
father  and  your  uncle  Southey ;  but  the  impression  upon 
his  mind  is  that  he  first  saw  them  both,  and  your  aunt 
Edith  at  the  same  time,  in  a  lodging  in  Bristol.  This 
must  have  been  about  the  year  1795." 

Racedown  is  the  name  of  a  farm  in  Dorsetshire. 
It  lies  seven  miles  back  from  the  shore  of  the  English 
Channel,  to  the  north-east  of  Lyme  Regis,  and  is  about 
equally  distant  from  Lyme,  Beaminster,  Crewkerne, 
and  Chard.  A  sharp  point  of  Devonshire  almost 
touches  it,  and  Ottery  St.  Mary  in  that  county,  the 
birthplace  of  Coleridge,  is  only  twenty-four  miles 
distant.  The  land  lies  along  the  bed  of  a  small  water- 
course that  winds  between  bold  hills.  In  sheltered  parts 
it  is  fertile,  and  vegetation  is  abundant.  But  where 
the  ground  rises  above  the  common  level,  the  trees 
are  stunted  and  bend  weirdly  in  one  direction,  away 
from  the  sea.  Heavy,  flat-topped  hills,  that  look 
like  elephants'  brows,  push  southward  as  if  they  still 
held  the  ocean  at  bay.  On  the  highest  of  them,  its 
immense  flank  rising  from  the  edge  of  the  Racedown 
fields,  the  green  ramparts  of  an  ancient  "  camp  "  still 
overlook    the    Channel.     From   the   roads   that    follow 

*  "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,"  III.  327. 


/ 


284  DOROTHY  [chap,  xii 

the  trend  of  the  streams  glimpses  of  blue  water  show 
themselves  here  and  there  as  the  valleys  open  out 
southward.  Through  these  immense  funnels  the  wind 
brings  the  scent  and  the  sound  of  the  sea,  and  the 
place  is  never  quiet,  for  all  its  seclusion.  The  house 
is  a  stiff,  dignified  brick  building,  covered  now  with  grey 
plaster.  It  looks  comfortable,  though  a  little  gloomy. 
On  each  side  of  the  ample  door  is  one  large  window. 
There  are  three  large  windows  on  the  second  floor  in 
front,  and  quite  inappropriately  there  is  a  third  story. 
Half  the  charm  of  English  rural  dwellings,  whether 
cottage  or  hall,  depends  on  their  modesty,  their  corre- 
spondence to  the  character  and  needs  of  their  inmates. 
Racedown  is  not  grand  enough  to  be  called  a  country- 
seat  nor  plain  enough  to  be  called  a  farmhouse.  Fifty 
yards  in  front  of  the  door  two  high  walls,  of  recent  con- 
struction, curve  away  gracefully  from  a  wide  gateway, 
and  rows  of  immense  beeches  follow  the  lines  of  the 
walls.  Beyond,  the  ground  falls  away  rapidly  to  the 
coast.  It  is  a  place  where  one  might  live  for  a  long 
time  absorbed  by  the  immediate  details  of  the  buildings, 
the  garden,  the  home-fields,  the  thickets  that  follow 
the  stream,  or,  in  half  an  hour's  walk,  enjoy  a  wide 
glittering  prospect.  The  country  even  now  is  rather 
thinly  settled.  There  are  no  large  villages  near.  Three 
miles  away,  at  the  hamlet  of  Broadwindsor,  is  the 
ancestral  home  of  the  Pinney  family.  The  owner  of 
Racedown  in  1795  was  John  Preter,  who  took  the  name 
of  Pinney  on  succeeding  to  the  estate  in  1762.  He  was 
at  one  time  High  Sheriff  of  Dorset,  and  had  two  sons, 
John  Frederick  and  Charles,  and  two  daughters. 

The  Wordsworths  went  to  Racedown  in  September, 
1795.*  The  next  date  in  connection  with  their  life 
there  is  November  20,  when  William  addressed  a  letter 
to  Wrangham  from  "  Racedown  Cottage,  near  Crew- 
kerne."  He  was  still  busy  with  a  task  he  and  Wrang- 
ham had  undertaken  together,  which  was  the  composi- 
tion of  satires  on  public  men  and  measures,  in  imita- 

*  Mrs.  Pinney,  of  Broadwindsor,  Dorset,  has  the  inventory  which  the 
poet  signed  on  September  7.  The  house,  she  informs  me,  was  lent  to  him 
rent-free. 


i795]  SATIRES  ON  ROYALTY  285 

tion  of  Juvenal.  Among  the  objects  of  derision  were 
King  George,  the  Prince  of  Wales,  the  Duke  of  Norfolk, 
and,  doubtless  for  private  reasons,  the  Earl  of  Lonsdale. 
The  specimen  lines  given  in  this  letter  are  enough  to 
make  one  thankful  on  many  accounts — of  which  pru- 
dence is  not  the  chief — that  the  rash  satirist  learned 
to  suppress  his  rage. 

In  another  but  undated  letter  to  Wrangham  from 
Racedown  containing  satirical  verses  occurs  the  follow- 
ing passage  on  the  Prince  Regent : 

The  nation's  hope  shall  show  the  present  time 
As  rich  in  folly  as  the  past  in  crime. 
Do  arts  like  these  a  royal  mind  evince  ? 
Are  these  the  studies  that  beseem  a  prince  ? 
Wedged  in  with  blacklegs  at  a  boxers'  show, 
To  shout  with  transport  at  a  knock-down  blow — 
'Mid  knots  of  grooms,  the  council  of  his  state, 
To  scheme  and  counter-scheme  for  purse  and  plate. 
Thy  ancient  honours  when  shalt  thou  resume  ? 
Oh  shame,  is  this  thy  service'  boastful  plume  ?  — 
Go,  modern  Prince  !  at  Henry's  tomb  proclaim 
Thy  rival  triumphs,  thy  Newmarket  fame, 
There  hang  thy  trophies — bid  the  jockey's  vest, 
The  whip,  the  cap,  and  spurs  thy  fame  attest. 

In  the  letter  of  November  20  he  sends  Wrangham 
more  of  his  imitations,  including  a  very  daring  couplet : 

Heavens  !  who  sees  majesty  in  George's  face  ? 
Or  looks  at  Norfolk,  and  can  dream  of  grace  ? 

And  of  this  he  says: 

"  The  two  best  verses  of  this  extract  were  given  me 
by  Southey,  a  friend  of  Coleridge's :  '  Who  sees  majesty,' 
etc.  He  supplied  me  with  another  line  which  I  think 
worth  adopting.  We  mention  Lord  Courtenay :  Southey's 
verse  is, '  Whence  have  I  fallen  ?  alas  !  what  have  I  done  ?' 
a  literal  translation  of  the  Courtenay  motto,  '  Unde 
lapsus?  quid  feci?'  "* 

It  is  in  this  letter  also  that  Wordsworth  mentions 
"Guilt  and  Sorrow  ": 

*  Sec  an  article  by  Mr.  T.  Hutchinson  in  The  Athenccum  for  December  8, 
1894,  in  which  the  importance  of  Wordsworth's  letter  is  pointed  out  as 
showing  positively  that  he  had  met  Coleridge  in  1795. 


286  DOROTHY  [chap,  xn 

I  have  a  poem  which  I  should  wish  to  dispose  of, 
provided  I  could  get  anything  for  it.  .  .  .  Its  object 
is  partly  to  expose  the  vices  of  the  penal  law,  and  the 
calamities  of  war  as  they  affect  individuals." 

We  may  gain  some  idea  of  his  poverty  and  the  deep 
seclusion  of  Racedown  from  the  following  passage : 

"  You  flattered  me  with  a  hope  that,  by  your  assist- 
ance, I  might  be  supplied  with  the  Morning  Chronicle; 
have  you  spoken  to  the  editors  about  it  ?  If  it  could  be 
managed,  I  should  be  much  pleased;  as  we  only  see  here 
a  provincial  weekly  paper,  and  I  cannot  afford  to  have 
the  Chronicle  at  my  own  expense.  I  have  said  nothing 
of  Racedown.  It  is  an  excellent  house  and  the  country 
far  from  unpleasant,  but  as  for  society  we  must  manu- 
facture it  ourselves.  Will  you  come  and  help  us  ?  We 
expect  Montagu  at  Christmas,  and  should  be  very  glad 
if  you  could  make  it  convenient  to  come  along  with  him. 
If  not,  at  all  events,  we  shall  hope  to  see  you  in  the 
course  of  the  next  summer." 

In  another  letter  to  Wrangham,  apparently  of  not 
much  later  date,  he  says:  "  We  have  neither  magazine, 
review,  nor  any  new  publication  whatever."  He 
modestly  declines  to  set  up  as  a  schoolmaster,  saying: 
"  As  to  your  promoting  my  interest  in  the  way  of  pupils, 
upon  a  review  of  my  own  attainments  I  think  there 
is  so  little  that  I  am  able  to  teach  that  this  scheme 
may  be  suffered  to  fly  quietly  away  to  the  paradise 
of  fools." 

From  the  two  letters,  Professor  Knight  has  printed 
158  lines  of  the  satires,*  but  as  they  stand  they  scarcely 
make  sense.  Their  purport,  however,  is  plain  enough, 
and  the  poet's  nephew  described  them  with  precision 
when  he  wrote  :f  "  These  specimens  exhibit  poetical 
vigour,  combined  with  no  little  asperity  and  rancour 
against  the  abuses  of  the  time,  and  the  vices  of  the 
ruling  powers,  and  the  fashionable  corruptions  of  aristo- 
cratical  society."  The  most  vivid  picture  in  the  frag- 
ments is  that  of  a  subservient  Parliament  and  the  mad 
King: 

*   "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,"  I.  88  and  94. 
j   "  Memoirs,"  I.  95. 


1795]  A  MODERN  JUVENAL  287 

So  patient  Senates  quibble  by  the  hour 

And  prove  with  endless  tongues  a  monarch's  power. 

Or  whet  his  kingly  faculties  to  chase 

Legions  of  devils  through  a  keyhole's  space. 

Wrangham  was  a  prolific  author  of  verse  and  prose, 
but  I  have  discovered  nothing  in  his  writings  which 
indicates  that  he  ever  published  his  part  of  this  joint 
production.  Wordsworth  was  even  then  finding  more 
congenial  modes  of  expression,  and  it  was  not  to  be 
expected  that  a  man  of  so  little  practical  experience  of 
public  life,  and  living  far,  moreover,  from  the  scene  of 
combat,  could  continue  to  criticize  passing  events  with 
the  light  and  yet  penetrating  touch  that  satire  demands. 
And  so  he,  too,  suppressed  his  part  of  this  adventure. 
He  was  already  engaged  upon  another.  He  announced 
to  Wrangham:  "  I  have  been  employed  lately  in  writing 
a  tragedy — the  first  draft  of  which  is  nearly  finished." 
The  same  letter  contains  a  humorous  allusion  to  God- 
win's curious  doctrine  on  the  subject  of  promises,  and 
another  profession  of  poverty.  Ten  to  one,  he  says,  he 
will  not  be  able  to  release  Wrangham 's  reply  from  the 
post-office  unless  it  is  franked.  He  has  been  living 
lately,  he  gaily  says,  upon  air  and  the  essence  of  carrots, 
cabbages,  turnips,  and  other  esculent  vegetables,  not 
excluding  parsley,  the  produce  of  his  garden. 

In  another  letter  to  Wrangham,*  dated  March  7 
(1796  evidently),  he  congratulates  him,  somewhat 
jocosely,  on  having  been  presented  to  a  very  rich  living, 
as  Rector  of  Hunmanby,  in  Yorkshire,  and  expresses  a 
hope  that  his  friend  will  now,  "  like  every  sensible  rich 
man,"  turn  his  thoughts  towards  travel.  This,  we  may 
be  sure,  is  what  he  would  have  done  himself,  for  he  was 
always  possessed  with  a  love  of  wandering,  and  gratified 
it  frequently  when  his  circumstances  permitted,  and 
even  sometimes  when  they  seemed  very  unpropitious. 
He  says  he  does  not  mean"  to  drop  the  Juvenal  scheme," 
and  has  been  working  at  it  that  morning.  "  We  have 
had  the  two  Pinneys  with  us,"  he  remarks,  "  John  for  a 
month.     They  left  us  yesterday,  and,  as  I  now  feel  a 

*  "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,"  I.  101. 


288  DOROTHY  [chap,  xn 

return  of  literary  appetite,  I  mean  to  take  a  snack  of 
satire  by  way  of  sandwich."  Alluding  again  to  Wrang- 
ham's  promotion  and  to  Montagu's  ill-fortune  in  losing 
his  father's  legacy,  he  says:  "  I  have  been  engaged  an 
hour  and  a  half  this  morning  in  hewing  wood  and  root- 
ing up  hedges,  and  I  think  it  no  bad  employment  to  feel 
'  the  penalty  of  Adam  '  in  this  way.  Some  of  our 
friends  have  not  been  so  lucky,  witness  poor  Montagu." 
In  a  postscript  he  adds:  "  Basil  is  quite  well,  quant  au 
physique,  mais  pour  le  moral,  il  y  a  bien  a  craindre. 
Among  other  things,  he  lies  like  a  little  devil." 

On  March  21,  1 796,  and  this  time  in  a  letter  to 
Mathews,  he  writes  :* 

"  I  was  tolerably  industrious  in  reading,  if  reading 
can  ever  deserve  the  name  of  industry,  till  our  good 
friends  the  Pinneys  came  among  us ;  and  1  have  since 
returned  to  my  books.  As  to  writing,  it  is  out  of  the 
question.  Not,  however,  entirely  to  forget  the  world, 
I  season  my  recollection  of  some  of  its  objects  with  a 
little  ill-nature — I  attempt  to  write  satires;  and  in  all 
satires,  whatever  the  authors  may  say,  there  will  be 
found  a  spice  of  malignity." 

Years  afterwards,  in  1807,  Wordsworth  forbade 
Wrangham  to  publish  these  verses,  alleging  with  great 
solemnity  that  he  had  "  long  since  come  to  a  fixed 
determination  to  steer  clear  of  personal  satire."  Many 
reasons  had,  moreover,  by  that  time  made  it  undesirable 
that  his  name  should  be  mentioned  in  connection  with 
the  work. 

It  is  amazing  how  numerous  were  the  ties  that  bound 
Wordsworth's  youthful  friends  to  one  another.  It  is 
evident  that  Mathews,  too,  was  acquainted  with  the 
Pinneys,  for  the  poet  writes  to  him: 

"  I  fully  expected  to  hear  from  you  by  Azar  Pinney 
[Azariah  is  a  name  that  occurs  several  times  in  the 
Pinney  pedigree],  and  was  not  a  little  surprised  you 
omitted  so  good  an  opportunity  of  sending  me  the 
volume  of  fugitive  poetry." 

*  "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,"  I.  107. 


1796]  INTEREST  IN  READING  289 

And  then,  referring  perhaps  to  the  Cannonian  Club,  to 
which  Holcroft  and  some  of  his  friends,  as  we  have  seen, 
belonged,  he  continues: 

"  Pray  write  to  me  at  length,  and  give  me  an 
account  of  your  proceedings  in  the  Society,  or  any  other 
information  likely  to  interest  me.  Are  your  members 
much  increased  ?  and  what  is  of  more  consequence,  have 
you  improved  I  do  not  ask  in  the  [art]  of  speaking,  but 
in  the  more  important  one  of  thinking  ?" 

The  Pinneys  probably  brought  a  copy  of  Southey's 
epic  poem,  "  Joan  of  Arc,"  which  Wordsworth  criticizes 
severely,  in  a  passage  from  which  I  infer  that  the  young 
Oxford  poet  was  known  personally,  and  unfavourably, 
to  Mathews.  Montagu  has  sent  a  copy  of  the  second 
edition  of  "  Political  Justice,"  and  the  recluse  shows  his 
previous  acquaintance  with  the  work  by  remarking  that 
he  expects  to  find  it  much  improved.  He  thinks  the 
preface  badly  written.  "  Give  me  some  news  about  the 
theatre,"  he  begs;  "  I  have  attempted  to  read  Holcroft's 
Man  of  Ten  Thousand,  but  such  stuff. "  And  after  be- 
seeching Mathews  to  come  and  visit  him,  he  says :  "  My 
sister  would  be  very  glad  of  your  assistance  in  her 
Italian  studies.  She  has  already  gone  through  half  of 
Davila,*  and  yesterday  we  began  Ariosto."  From  these 
few  lines  of  Wordsworth's,  and  with  the  knowledge  that 
he  was  then  composing  his  tragedy  "  The  Borderers," 
we  may  form  some  idea  of  how  he  employed  himself 
during  the  twenty- two  months,  more  or  less,  that  he 
lived  at  Racedown.  There  is  here  no  trace  whatever  of 
that  mental  depression,  that  clouding  of  his  spiritual 
faculties,  that  moroseness,  which  we  have  been  so  often 
told  worked  a  crisis  in  his  life  and  particularly  charac- 
terized the  early  months  of  his  residence  in  Dorsetshire. 
Affecting  pictures  have  again  and  again  been  drawn  of 
a  young  sufferer,  his  heart  chilled,  his  intellect  sated, 
by  the  sophistries  of  rationalism,  creeping  to  this  lonely 

*  If  this  was  Davila's  "  Istoria  delle  Guerre  civili  di  Francia,"  an 
ancient  copy  of  which  was  catalogued  among  Wordsworth's  books  after 
his  death,  it  was  rather  solid  reading  for  a  beginner,  and  in  old-fashioned 
Italian,  too. 

I.  19 


290  DOROTHY  [chap,  xii 

.  place,  and  here  recovering  his  faith  through  the  minis- 
trations of  his  sister  and  the  kindly  influence  of  nature. 
Some  very  small  degree  of  truth  perhaps  there  is  in  these 
descriptions.  They  find  a  general  warrant  in  certain 
passages  of  "  The  Prelude  "  and  "  The  Excursion." 
And  after  the  crowding  experiences  of  the  preceding 
eight  years,  with  their  frequent  changes  of  scene,  their 
homeless  wanderings,  their  generous  hopes,  and  sharp 
disappointments,  after  keen  intercourse  with  men 
struggling  to  establish  new  and  despised  systems,  after 
the  miserable  life  of  cities,  we  might  expect  to  find  him 
weary  and  longing  for  a  chance  to  think  out  his  future 
course ;  but  in  his  letters  from  Racedown  there  is  of  all 
this  not  a  word.  We  see  him  more  cheerful  than  he 
was  a  year  before,  in  the  north,  and  intellectually  more 
active;  we  feel  in  what  he  writes  to  Wrangham  and 
Mathews  an  abounding  energy,  and,  above  all,  a  tone 
of  self-confidence.  Moreover,  there  is  here  no  hint  that 
he  has  broken  or  desired  to  break  with  his  old  connec- 
tions in  London.  Politics,  the  theatre,  the  books  of  his 
acquaintances,  still  interest  him.  He  begs  eagerly  to 
be  kept  informed  of  what?isrgoing"on  in  ther world.  He 
gives  absolutely  no  ground  to  suppose  that  he  has  been 
disillusioned  with  regard  to  the  social  and  religious  views 
professed  by  himself  and  his  friends.  The'causes  of  his 
retirement,  he  gives  it  to  be  understood,  are  poverty 
and  a  wish  to  study.  If  he  was  ever  to  carry  out  the 
long-cherished  plan  of  living  with  his  sister,  the  oppor- 
tunity of  having  a  large  house  in  the  country,  rent-free, 
and  in  a  place  where  his  little  income  would  go  farthest, 
was  not  to  be  rejected.  The  quiet  of  Racedown  gave 
him  a  chance  to  do  some  of  that  extensive  reading,  which, 
as "' Professor  Lane  Cooper  has  painstakingly  shown,* 
included  many  works  of  modern  European  literature, 
and  especially  books  of  travel.  The  fact  that  he  was 
writing  a  tragedy  is  no  proof  that  his  own  mood  was 
tragic. 

*  "  A  Glance  at  Wordsworth's  Reading,"  Modern  Language  Notes, 
March  and  April,  1907.  See  also  K.  Lienemann,  "  Die  Belesenheit  von 
William  Wordsworth,"  Berlin,  1908. 


i795l  HER  GIFT  OF  OBSERVATION  291 

Perhaps,  then,  in  Dorothy's  letters  from  Racedown  we 
shall  find  evidence  in  support  of  the  traditional  theory. 
Perhaps  in  her  simpler  though  not  more  open-hearted 
style,  she  will  reveal  his  secret  grief.  But  this  is  not  so. 
She  gives  a  charming  and  harmonious  picture  of  domestic 
happiness.  They  are  both  busy  with  their  reading  and 
the  education  of  little  Basil.  Visitors  are  few.  They 
fare  plainly,  but  pleasantly.  They  enjoy  their  big 
house.  The  country  round  about  draws  them  forth  on 
long  walks.  She  is  perfectly  happy,  perfectly  in  accord 
with  her  brother,  zealous  to  have  him  succeed  in  his 
work.  There  is  nothing  whatever  to  suggest  that  she 
is  trying  "  to  win  him  back  "  to  something  that  he  has 
left  behind. 

Her  letters  from  Racedown  to  Mrs.  Marshall  are  most 
engaging.  She  begins  to  reveal  in  them  for  the  first 
time  her  extraordinary  gift  of  direct  observation  and 
accurate  description.  Her  remarks  on  the  bringing  up 
of  children  are  very  sound  for  a  girl  of  twenty-three, 
and  the  plan  she  was  following  in  the  case  of  Basil  shows 
that  she  had  some  acquaintance  with  Rousseau's  theory. 
The  first  letter  is  dated  November  30,*  and  opens  with 
an  apology  for  not  writing  sooner  after  her  arrival : 

"  We  are  now  surrounded  with  winter  prospects 
without  doors,  and  within  have  only  winter  occupa- 
tions, books,  solitude,  and  the  fireside;  yet  I  may  safely 
say  we  are  never  dull.  Basil  is  a  charming  boy;  he 
affords  us  perpetual  entertainment.  Do  not  suppose 
from  this  that  we  make  him  our  perpetual  plaything, 
far  otherwise.  I  think  that  is  one  of  the  modes  of  treat- 
ment most  likely  to  ruin  a  child's  temper  and  character; 
but  I  do  not  think  there  is  any  pleasure  more  delightful 
than  that  of  marking  the  development  of  a  child's 
faculties  and  observing  his  little  occupations.  We 
found  everything  at  Racedown  much  more  complete 
with  respect  to  household  conveniences  than  I  could  have 
expected.  You  may  judge  of  this  when  I  tell  you  that 
we  have  not  had  to  lay  out  ten  shillings  on  the  house. 
We  were  a  whole  month  without  a  servant,  but  now  we 
have  got  one  of  the  nicest  girls  I  ever  saw;  she  suits  us 
exactly,  and  I  have  all  my  domestic  concerns  so  arranged 

*   In  Mr.  Marshall's  collection. 


292  DOROTHY  [chap,  xii 

that  everything  goes  on  with  the  utmost  regularity.  .  .  . 
We  walk  about  two  hours  every  morning.  We  have 
many  very  pleasant  walks  about  us;  and,  what  is  a  great 
advantage,  the  roads  are  of  a  sandy  kind  and  almost 
always  dry.  We  can  see  the  sea  1 50  or  200  yards  from 
the  door,  and,  at  a  little  distance,  have  a  very  extensive 
view  terminated  by  the  sea,  seen  through  different 
openings  of  the  unequal  hills.  We  have  not  the  warmth 
and  luxuriance  of  Devonshire,  though  there  is  no  want 
either  of  wood  or  cultivation;  but  the  trees  appear  to 
suffer  from  the  sea-blasts.  We  have  hills  which — seen 
from  a  distance — almost  take  the  character  of  moun- 
tains; some  cultivated  nearly  to  their  summits,  others  in 
a  wild  state,  covered  with  furze  and  broom.  These 
delight  me  the  most,  as  they  remind  me  of  our  native 
wilds.  ...  I  have  had  only  one  great  disappointment 
since  we  came,  and  that  is  about  the  little  girl.  I  lament 
it  the  more,  as  I  am  sure  if  her  father  knew  all  the  cir- 
cumstances, he  would  wish  her  to  be  placed  under  our 
care.  Mr.  Montagu  intended  being  with  us  a  month  ago, 
but  we  have  not  seen  him  yet.  I  have  the  satisfaction  of 
thinking  that  he  will  see  great  improvements  in  Basil." 

Towards  the  conclusion  of  this,  her  first  letter  from 
Racedown  to  Mrs.  Marshall,*  Dorothy  makes  a  state- 
ment which  shows  that  the  ties  which  bound  her  brother 
to  France  were  by  no  means  yet  broken,  and  that  they 
were  known  to  her  and  to  her  friend:  "William  has 
had  a  letter  from  France  since  we  came  here.  Annette 
mentions  having  despatched  half  a  dozen,  none  of  which 
he  has  received."  She  has  an  eye  for  the  condition 
of  the  poor  country-people  about  her,  which  compared 
unfavourably  with  that  of  the  Cumberland  and  West- 
morland "  statesmen."  "  The  peasants  are  miserably 
poor,"  she  writes;  "  their  cottages  are  shapeless  struc- 
tures of  wood  and  clay :  indeed,  they  are  not  at  all  beyond 
what  might  be  expected  in  savage  life."  Appearances 
at  least  have  much  improved  since. 

In  another  letter  to  Mrs.  Marshall,  written  evidently 
on  March  7,  1796,!  she  says: 

*  Professor  Knight  prints  this  oonciusion,  in  "  Letters  of  the  Words- 
worth Family,"  I.  103,  out  of  place.  It  is  really  a  part  of  the  letter  dated 
November  30.     "  The  little  girl  "  means  Myers's  child. 

f  In  Mr.  Marshall's  collection. 


i796]  SOCIAL  PLEASURES  293 

"  We  have  not  seen  Mr.  Montagu,  which  disappointed 
us  greatly.  .  .  .  The  Pinneys  have  been  with  us  five 
weeks,  one  week  at  Christmas  and  a  month  since.  They 
left  us  yesterday.  We  all  enjoyed  ourselves  very  much. 
They  seemed  to  relish  the  pleasures  of  our  fireside  in  the 
evening  and  the  excursion  of  the  morning.  They  are 
very  amiable  young  men,  particularly  the  elder.  He  is 
two  and  twenty,  has  a  charming  countenance,  and  the 
sweetest  temper  I  ever  observed.  He  has  travelled  a 
good  deal  in  the  way  of  education,  been  at  one  of  the 
great  schools,  and  at  Oxford,  has  always  had  plenty  of 
money  to  spend.  This  instead  of  having  spoiled  him, 
or  made  him  conceited,  has  wrought  the  pleasantest 
effects.  He  is  well  informed,  has  an  uncommonly  good 
heart,  and  is  very  agreeable  in  conversation.  He  has 
no  profession.  His  brother  has  been  brought  up  a 
merchant.  .  .  .  We  have  read  a  good  deal  while  they 
weie  with  us  (for  they  are  fond  of  reading),  but  we  have 
not  gone  on  with  our  usual  regularity.  When  the 
weather  was  fine  they  were  out  generally  all  the  morning, 
walking  sometimes.  "  Then,  I  went  with  them  frequently, 
riding  sometimes,  hunting,  coursing,  cleaving  wood — a 
very  desirable  employment,  and  what  all  housekeepers 
would  do  well  to  recommend  to  the  young  men  of  their 
household  in  such  a  cold  country  as  this,  for  it  produces 
warmth  both  within  and  without  doors." 

Lovers  of  English  poetry  may  congratulate  them- 
selves that  this  method  of  employing  handsome  young 
visitors  did  not  have  the  same  result  at  Racedown  as 
on  Prospero's  enchanted  isle.  It  is  pleasant,  though 
rather  startling,  to  think  of  Dorothy  Wordsworth 
coursing  hares  and  fox-hunting. 

"  I  have  not  spoken  of  Basil  yet,"  she  continues.  "  He 
is  my  perpetual  pleasure,  quite  metamorphosed  from  a 
shivering  half-starved  plant  to  a  lusty,  blooming,  fear- 
less boy.  He  dreads  neither  cold  nor  rain.  He  has 
played  frequently  for  an  hour  or  two  without  appear- 
ing sensible  that  the  rain  was  pouring  down  upon  him, 
or  the  wind  blowing  about  him.  I  have  had  a  melan- 
choly letter  from  Mary  Hutchinson.  I  fear  that  Mar- 
garet is  dead  before  this  time.  She  was  then  attending 
her  at  Sockburn,  without  the  least  hope  of  her  recovery. 
Last  year  at  this  time  we  were  all  together,  and  little 
supposed  that  any  of  us  was  so  near  death." 


294  DOROTHY  [chap.  Xii 

She  tells  of  a  grand  dinner-party  they  gave  while  the 
Pinneys  were  with  them,  to  which  they  invited  their 
neighbours:  "  and  very  dull  it  was,  except  for  the  enter- 
tainment of  talking  about  it  before  and  after."  She 
gives  a  glimpse  of  her  more  serious  life : 

"  I  am  studying  my  Italian  very  hard.  I  am  reading 
the  Fool  of  Quality,  which  amuses  me  exceedingly. 
Within  the  last  month  I  have  read  Tristram  Shandy, 
Brydone's  Sicily  and  Malta,  and  Moore's  Travels  in 
France.  I  have  also  read  lately  Madame  Roland's 
Memoirs  and  some  other  French  things." 

She  mentions*  that  her  brother  and  the  Pinneys  had 
been  at  Crewkerne  to  dinner,  and  were  detained  by  a 
fire.  In  another  letter,  dated  March  19,  and  post- 
marked "  Crewkerne,  Mar  27  97,"  but  which  Professor 
Knight  dates,  incorrectly,  1796,  she  describes  at  con- 
siderable length  their  method  of  managing  and  teaching 
little  Basil.     It  all  sounds  like  a  page  from  "  Emile." 

"  We  teach  him  nothing  at  present,"  she  says,  "  but 
what  he  learns  from  the  evidence  of  his  senses.  He  has 
an  insatiable  curiosity,  which  we  are  always  careful  to 
satisfy  to  the  best  of  our  ability.  It  is  directed  to 
everything  he  sees,  the  sky,  the  fields,  trees,  shrubs, 
corn,  the  making  of  tools,  carts,  etc.  He  knows  his 
letters,  but  we  have  not  attempted  any  further  step  in 
the  path  of  book-learning.  Our  grand  study  has  been  to 
make  him  happy,  in  which  we  have  not  been  altogether 
disappointed.  .  .  .  We  have  no  punishments,  except 
such  as  appear  to  be,  so  far  as  we  can  determine,  the 
immediate  consequences  that  grow  out  of  the  offence." 

She  says  that  Montagu  had  come  to  them  unexpectedly, 
and  that  he  and  William  had  started  that  morning  for 
Bristol,  where  they  were  to  spend  about  a  fortnight. 
A  year  before — in  March,  1 796 — Coleridge  was  at  Bristol, 
getting  out,  with  what  excitement  can  be  imagined,  the 
first  four  numbers  of  The  Watchman,  a  periodical  mis- 
cellany, intended,  as  the  Prospectus  declared,  "  to  pro- 
claim the  State  of  the  Political  Atmosphere,  and  pre- 
serve  Freedom   and  her   Friends  from   the   attacks   of 

*  In  a  letter  hitherto  unpublished,  belonging  to  Mr.  Marshall. 


1797]  WILLIAM  VISITS  BRISTOL  295 

Robbers  and  Assassins  !  !"  In  the  spring  of  1796,  while 
he  was  "  on  Watch,"  as  he  says,  Coleridge  wrote  to 
Cottle  declaring  his  intention  of  giving  away  a  sheet 
full  of  sonnets,  one  to  Mrs.  Barbauld,  one  to  Wakefield, 
the  radical  pamphleteer,  one  to  Dr.  Beddoes,  one  to 
Wrangham,  whom  he  calls  "  a  college  acquaintance  of 
mine,  an  admirer  of  me,  and  a  pitier  of  my  principles," 
one  to  C.  Lamb,  one  to  Wordsworth,  etc.  Coleridge, 
Lamb,  Wrangham,  and  Vordsworth  !  The  lines  were 
already  converging.  In  a  long  letter  to  Thelwall,  dated 
May  13,  1796,*  Coleridge  refers  unmistakably  to  Words- 
worth, though  without  naming  him.  "  A  very  dear 
friend  of  mine,"  he  says,  "  who  is,  in  my  opinion,  the 
best  poet  of  the  age  (I  will  send  you  his  poem  when 
published),  thinks  that  the  lines  from  364  to  375  and 
from  403  to  428  are  the  best  in  the  volume, — indeed, 
worth  all  the  rest."  Coleridge  is  referring  here  to  his 
own  book.  He  continues:  "And  this  man  is  a  re- 
publican, and,  at  least,  a  semi-atheist." 

In  March,  1797,  Wordsworth  would  be  likely  to  see 
Coleridge  in  Bristol,  though  by  this  time  The  Watchman 
had  long  since  ceased  to  warn  the  public,  and  its  editor 
was  living  at  Nether  Stowey.  He  was  not  the  man  to 
stay  in  a  place  because  he  belonged  there,  and  he  is 
known  to  have  been  preaching  at  this  time  in  the 
Unitarian  chapels  of  Taunton  and  Bridgwater.  He 
may  easily  have  been  in  Bristol  too,  and  Mrs.  Sandford, 
in  that  precious  and  carefully  edited  book,  "  Thomas 
Poole  and  his  Friends,"  says  that  "  during  the  early 
months  of  1797,  Coleridge  seems  to  have  been  often  to 
and  fro  between  Bristol  and  Stowey." 

It  is  more  surprising  that  Wordsworth  should  have 
left  Racedown  at  this  time,  for  his  old  friend  and  future 
wife,  Mary  Hutchinson,  was  visiting  his  sister. 

"  You  perhaps  have  heard,"  the  latter  writes  ,f  in  her 
enthusiastic  way,  "  that  my  friend  Mary  Hutchinson  is 
staying  with  me.     She  is  the  best  girl  in  the  world,  and 

*  Ernest  Hartley  Coleridge,  "  Letters  of  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge," 
Vol.  I.,  pp.  163,  164. 

fin  the  letter,  already  mentioned,  of  March  19,  1797. 


296  DOROTHY  [chap,  xn 

we  are  as  happy  as  human  beings  can  be,  that  is,"  she 
adds  ruefully,  "  when  William  is  at  home;  for  you  can- 
not imagine  how  dull  we  feel,  and  what  a  vacuum  his 
loss  has  occasioned,  but  this  is  the  first  day;  to-morrow 
we  shall  be  better;  we  feel  the  change  more  severely  as 
we  have  lost  both  Montagu  and  him  at  once.  M.  is  so 
cheerful  and  made  us  so  merry  that  we  hardly  know 
how  to  bear  the  change.  Indeed,  William  is  as  cheerful 
as  anybody  can  be;  perhaps  you  may  not  think  it,  but 
he  is  the  life  of  the  whole  house." 

She  writes  with  the  same  girlish  simplicity  that  she  is 
excessively  pleased  with  Mr.  Montagu,  that  he  is  one  of 
the  pleasantest  men  she  ever  saw,  and  so  amiable  and 
good  that  everyone  must  love  him. 

It  may  have  been  during  this  visit  to  Bristol  that 
Wordsworth  met  Thomas  Poole,  Coleridge's  good  angel. 
The  following  letter  shows  that  Coleridge  visited  Words- 
worth in  June,  1797,  at  Racedown,  and  indicates  besides 
that  the  latter  already  knew  Poole  and  Cottle.  Part  of 
it  was  printed  b}^  Cottle  in  his  "  Early  Recollections," 
and  again,  with  a  wrong  date,  in  his  "  Reminiscences." 
J.  Dykes  Campbell  saw  the  original,  and  was  led  to 
infer  from  the  sentence  about  Poole  that  it  seemed  "  to 
point  to  a  previous  visit  or  visits  to  Stowey  paid  by 
Wordsworth,  or  to  meetings  with  Poole  at  Bristol,  of 
which  direct  record  is  lacking."  A  less  cautious  reader 
than  Campbell  might  go  further,  and  surmise  that  this 
was  not  the  first  time  Cottle  had  been  informed  that 
Wordsworth  had  written  a  play.  When  the  latter  left 
the  two  young  ladies  at  Racedown  mourning  his  depar- 
ture, he  probably  sacrificed  inclination  to  business,  and 
what  business  could  have  appeared  to  him  more  urgent 
than  the  launching  of  his  tragedy  ?  Having  done  all  he 
could  in  that  direction,  in  March,  he  would  naturally 
seek  to  renew  his  intercourse  with  Coleridge,  and  if  he 
had  not  met  Poole  before,  he  would  do  so  then.  Cole- 
ridge, as  we  have  seen,  returned  the  visit  in  June.  His 
letter  from  Racedown  was  finally  printed  by  Mr.  Ernest 
Hartley  Coleridge,  in  his  "  Letters  of  Samuel  Taylor 
Coleridge,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  220.  The  probable  date,  the 
editor  says,  is  Thursday,  June  8.     He  notes  that  "  On 


WILLIAM    WORDSWORTH 
From  a  drawing  by  Hancock  about  1796 


[Vol.  I.,  p.  296 


i797]  COLERIDGE'S  ENTHUSIASM  297 

Monday,  June  5,  Coleridge  breakfasted  with  Dr.  Toul- 
min,  the  Unitarian  minister  at  Taunton,  and  on  the 
evening  of  that  or  the  next  day  he  arrived  on  foot  at 
Racedown,  some  forty  miles  distant."  Omitting  three 
sentences  which  have  reference  only  to  the  forthcoming 
volume  of  poems,  which  Cottle  was  printing,  it  is  as 
follows  : 

"  June,  1797. 

"  My  dear  Cottle, — I  am  sojourning  for  a  few  days 
at  Racedown,  the  mansion  of  our  friend  Wordsworth, 
who  has  received  Fox's  '  Achmed.'  He  returns  you  his 
acknowledgments,  and  presents  his  kindliest  respects  to 
you.  I  shall  be  home  by  Friday — not  to-morrow — but 
the  next  Friday.  .  .  .  Wordsworth  admires  my  tragedy, 
which  gives  me  great  hopes.  Wordsworth  has  written 
a  tragedy  himself.  I  speak  with  heartfelt  sincerity,  and 
(I  think)  unblinded  judgment,  when  I  tell  3^ou  that  I  feel 
myself  a  little  man  by  his  side,  and  }ret  do  not  think  myself 
the  less  man  than  I  formerly  thought  myself.  His  drama 
is  absolutely  wonderful.  You  know  I  do  not  commonly 
speak  in  such  abrupt  and  unmingled  phrases,  and  there- 
fore will  the  more  readily  believe  me.  There  are  in  the 
piece  those  profound  touches  of  the  human  heart  which 
I  find  three  or  four  times  in  '  The  Robbers  '  of  Schiller, 
and  often  in  Shakespeare,  but  in  Wordsworth  there  are 
no  inequalities.  T.  Poole's  opinion  of  Wordsworth  is 
that  he  is  the  greatest  man  he  ever  knew;  I  coincide. 

"  It  is  not  impossible  that  in  the  course  of  two  or 
three  months  I  may  see  you.     God  bless  you  and 

"  S.  T.  Coleridge." 

It  would  almost  appear  that  the  writer,  knowing 
Cottle's  amiable  ambition  to  be  the  publisher  of  men  of 
poetical  genius,  was  trying  to  inflame  his  zeal  to  the 
point  of  undertaking  to  bring  out  "  The  Borderers."  It 
will  be  observed  from  the  first  sentence  that  Cottle  and 
Wordsworth  were  already  acquainted,  though  the  former 
is  presumed  not  to  have  heard  of  the  tragedy. 

There  could  be  no  more  characteristic  introduction  of 
Coleridge  as  Wordsworth's  generous  admirer,  enthusi- 
astic critic,  and  intimate  friend  than  this  letter.  Their 
paths  were  drawn  together  and  their  destinies  united  by 
the  same  mysterious  power  that  gave  to  English  poetry 


298  DOROTHY  [chap,  xii 

at  almost  the  same  moment  a  Sidney  and  a  Spenser, 
and,  again,  a  Marlowe  and  a  Shakespeare.  How  much 
help  they  were  to  be  to  each  other  in  the  coming  years  ! 
How  they  were  each  to  add  to  the  other's  poetic  vision 
and  poetic  faculty  !  How  many  sorrows  they  bore  in 
common  and  for  one  another's  sake,  and  how  great  is 
the  glory  they  share  ! 

Half  a  century  later,  when  Dorothy's  mind  had  given 
way  under  the  strain  of  too  much  sympathy  and  thought, 
and  Coleridge  was  beyond  the  touch  of  infirmity,  the 
aged  survivors  of  that  group  recalled  vividly  the  happy 
hour  when  they  all  four  came  together  for  the  first  time. 
Mrs.  Wordsworth  wrote  to  Sara  Coleridge,  November  7, 
1845:* 

"  Your  father  came  afterwards  to  visit  us  at  Race- 
down,  where  I  was  living  with  my  sister.  We  have  both 
a  distinct  remembrance  of  his  arrival.  He  did  not  keep 
to  the  high  road,  but  leaped  over  a  high  gate  and 
bounded  down  the  pathless  field,  by  which  he  cut  off 
an  angle.  We  both  retain  the  liveliest  possible  image 
of  his  appearance  at  that  moment.  My  poor  sister  has 
just  been  speaking  of  it  to  me  with  much  feeling  and 
tenderness." 

Were  it  not  for  this  reminiscence,  we  should  not  have 
known  that  Mary  Hutchinson  spent  the  whole  spring  at 
Racedown.  She  was  an  eminently  cheerful,  sensible 
person,  and  her  presence  at  the  farmhouse  could  not 
have  been  consistent  with  the  melancholy  with  which 
an  unfounded  tradition  has  invested  Wordsworth's  resi- 
dence there.  Compared  with  the  bright,  open  situation 
of  Alfoxden,  his  next  home,  Racedown  might  be  con- 
sidered dark,  but  when  we  remember  how  young  its 
occupants  were,  and  how  young  all  their  visitors,  fancy 
loves  to  picture  them  chatting  gaily  about  a  wood  fire 
in  their  common  parlour,  "  the  prettiest  little  room 
that  can  be,"  or  strolling  through  the  apple  orchards, 
which  were  so  numerous,  Dorothy  tells  us,  that  nobody 
thought  of  enclosing  them,  or  climbing  through  yellow 

*  This  version  of  Mrs.  Wordsworth's  letter  differs  in  several  particulars 
from  another  I  have  seen. 


i797]  COLERIDGE  AT  RACEDOWN  299 

furze  to  the  broad  top  of  Pilsdon  Pen  to  gaze  upon  the 
English  Channel.  When  Coleridge  was  there,  indoor 
delights  sufficed.  He  was  a  man  for  the  fireside  and 
long  evenings  with  books  and  talk. 

"  You  had  a  great  loss  in  not  seeing  Coleridge,"  wrote 
Dorothy  after  his  departure.*  "  He  is  a  wonderful  man. 
His  converration  teems  with  soul,  mirth,  and  spirit. 
Then  he  is  so  benevolent,  so  good-tempered  and  cheerful, 
and — like  William — interests  himself  so  much  about 
every  little  trifle.  At  first  I  thought  him  very  plain  — 
that  is,  for  about  three  minutes.  He  is  pale  and  thin, 
has  a  wide  mouth,  thick  lips,  and  riot  very  good  teeth, 
longish  loose  growing  half-curling  rough  black  hair.  But 
if  you  hear  him  speak  for  five  minutes  you  think  no 
more  of  them.  His  eye  is  large  and  full,  not  dark  but 
grey;  such  an  eye  as  would  receive  from  a  heavy  soul 
the  dullest  expression,  but  it  speaks  every  emotion  of 
his  animated  mind.  It  has  more  of  the  '  poet's  eye  in 
a  fine  frenzy  rolling  '  than  I  ever  witnessed.  He  has 
fine  dark  eyebrows,  and  an  overhanging  forehead.  The 
first  thing  that  was  read  after  he  came  was  William's 
new  poem,  The  Ruined  Cottage,  with  which  he  was  much 
delighted ;  and  after  tea  he  repeated  to  us  two  acts 
and  a  half  of  his  tragedy  Osorio.  The  next  morning 
William  read  his  tragedy  The  Borderers." 

Part  of  the  poem  here  called  "  The  Ruined  Cottage  " 
is  to  be  found  embedded  in  "  The  Excursion."  It  is 
the  oldest  portion  of  that  work — lines  871  to  916  of  the 
first  book.  Commenting  on  the  passage  in  1843,  the 
poet  says:  "  All  that  relates  to  Margaret  and  the  ruined 
cottage,  etc.,  was  taken  from  observations  made  in  the 
south-west  of  England."  It  shows  that  he  was  still 
deeply  concerned  with  the  evil  effects  of  war.  Margaret 
is  left  to  grieve  amid  the  ruins  of  her  home  because  her 
husband,  hopeless  through  poverty,  has  "  joined  a  troup 
of  soldiers,  going  to  a  distant  land."  Not  only  the  forty- 
five  lines  specified  above,  but  fully  half  of  the  book,  does 
this  subject  occupy.  It  is  impossible  to  say  how  much 
of  the  original  poem  has  been  actually  retained .f 

*  "  Memoirs,"  I.  99.     It  is  not  known  to  whom  this  letter  was  written. 
|  See  The  Athenaum,  August  13,  1904,  and  Mr.  T.  Hutchinson's  note 
on  p.  251  of  his  edition  of  "  Lyrical  Ballads." 


300  DOROTHY  [chap,  xn 

Two  other  pieces  of  verse  probably  written  by 
Wordsworth  at  Racedown,  or  perhaps  before  he  went 
there,  have  come  down  to  us.  One,  entitled  "  The 
Birth  of  Love,"  appeared  under  Wordsworth's  name 
in  a  volume  of  poems  published  by  Wrangham,  and 
is  a  translation  of  some  French  lines.*  Wordsworth 
never  reprinted  it.  Another,  "  The  Convict,"  appeared 
in  "  Lyrical  Ballads,"  1798,  and  was  thenceforth 
dropped  from  the  poet's  edition  of  his  works.  The 
contrast  in  execution  between  these  two  pieces  is  very 
great.  The  former  has  a  certain  brilliancy,  demanded 
by  the  subject-matter,  which  is  clever  and  conventional. 
The  latter  is  laboured  and  unmusical.  It  possesses 
no  other  value  than  its  political  significance.  The 
poet  compares  the  sleep  of  a  King — who  is  presumed  to 
be  necessarily  a  guilty  person — with  the  horrid  dreams 
of  a  convict  shut  up  to  brood  over  his  fault : 

When  from  the  dark  synod,  or  blood-reeking  field, 
To  his  chamber  the  monarch  is  led, 
All  soothers  of  sense  their  soft  virtue  shall  yield, 
And  quietness  pillow  his  head. 

But  the  poor  convict,  through  tumult  and  uproar,  is 
denied  even  a  brief  forgetfulness  of  his  crimes.  The 
last  stanza,  as  printed  in  "  Lyrical  Ballads,"  contained 
a  humane  expression  which  carries  us  back  again  to 
"  Political  Justice": 

At  thy  name  though  compassion  her  nature  resign, 
Though  in  virtue's  proud  mouth  thy  report  be  a  stain, 
My  care,  if  the  arm  of  the  mighty  were  mine, 
Would  plant  thee  where  yet  thou  might'st  blossom  again. 

M.  Legouis  remarks  that  in  this  "  thoroughly  God- 
winian  poem  "  Wordsworth  dramatized  "  the  philo- 
sopher's favourite  idea  for  the  reformation  of  the 
penal  laws  " — i.e.,  transportation  as  a  substitute  for 
capital  punishment.  It  is  altogether  to  the  credit 
both  of  Godwin  and  his  disciple  that  they  felt  the  folly 
and  wickedness  of  the  penal  code  in  their  time.       And 

*   "  L'£ducation  de  l'Amour,"  by  the  Vicomte  de  Segur. 


1797] 


THE  CONVICT 


301 


as  Milton  attained  full  stature  as  a  poet  only  after 
twenty  years  of  attention  to  public  affairs,  so  we 
have  no  reason  to  regret  that  Wordsworth  for  a  time 
gave  himself  to  such  questions,  even  if,  as  is  not  at  all 
certain,  he  thereby  delayed  the  expansion  of  his  poetic 
powers. 

11  The  Convict  "  was  originally  printed  in  The 
Morning  Post,  December  14,1797,  and  this  version  shows 
very  emphatically  the  poet's  anti-monarchical  prin- 
ciples, as  may  be  seen  in  the  following  stanzas,  con- 
trasting the  lot  of  the  king  and  the  felon  :* 

When  from  the  dark  Synod,  or  blood -reeking  field, 
To  his  chamber  the  Monarch  is  led, 
All  soothers  of  sense  their  soft  virtue  shall  yield, 
And  silent  attention  shall  pillow  his  head. 

If  the  less  guilty  Convict  a  moment  would  doze 
And  oblivion  his  tortures  appease. 
On  the  iron  that  galls  him  his  limbs  must  repose 
In  the  damp-dropping  vault  of  disease. 

*  See  an  article  by  R.  A.  Potts  in  The  Athenceum  for  August  13,  1904. 


Racedown. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

COLERIDGE 

The  life  of  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge  is  hardly  more 
remarkable  for  his  genius  than  for  the  demonstrations 
of  generosity  which  he  evoked  in  other  men.  It  would 
be  unfair  to  insinuate  that  Cottle's  practical  advice 
and  frequent  loans  were  prompted  solely  by  self- 
interest.  If  he  took  pains  and  even  ran  risks  because 
he  had  faith  in  Coleridge's  powers,  one  reason  was  that 
he  "  honoured  verse."  Although  the  natural  differences 
of  temperament  between  Coleridge  and  Southey,  ex- 
asperated by  their  recent  approximation,  in  having 
embarked  upon  the  same  mad  project  and  married 
imprudently  into  the  same  family,  had  by  1796  resulted 
in  coolness  and  dislike,  Southey  was  still  faithful 
to  his  ideal  of  Coleridge.  One  of  the  most  satisfactory 
of  these  friendships,  satisfactory  because  it  gave 
equal  delight  and  advantage  to  both  parties  and  was 
preserved  by  a  fine  balance  of  mutual  respect,  was 
that  between  the  poet  and  Thomas  Poole.  The  story 
of  their  relations  with  each  other  has  been  charmingly 
recounted  in  Mrs.  Sandford's  "  Thomas  Poole  and  his 
Friends,"  one  of  those  biographies  for  which  people 
who  have  passed  the  meridian  of  life  forsake  fiction 
without  a  sigh  or  a  sense  of  loss. 

Poole  came  to  Coleridge's  aid  at  a  very  critical 
moment.  The  scheme  of  emigration  had  fallen  through. 
Southey  had  perceived  how  unpractical  it  was,  and 
though  his  loyal  nature  compelled  him  to  fulfil  his 
engagement  to  Miss  Edith  Fricker,  he  had  bidden 
her  farewell  at  the  church  door  after  their  marriage 
and   had   gone   to    Portugal.      When   he   returned,    in 

302 


796]  HIS  OPINION  OF  WORDSWORTH         303 

the  summer  of  1796,  the  project  seemed  to  him 
wilder  than  ever.  Nor  did  Lovell,  who  had  married 
Mary  Fricker,  care  to  revive  it.  Coleridge,  who  had 
married  their  sister  Sara  Fricker,  perhaps  as  much 
out  of  Pantisocratic  enthusiasm  as  for  love,  felt  woe- 
fully deceived  in  the  loss  of  his  romantic  hopes.  He 
had  nerved  himself  for  a  great  adventure,  of  which 
only  the  first  step  had  been  taken,  and  that  irretriev- 
able. As  a  preacher  and  lecturer,  he  had  not  been  very 
successful.  He  had  not  kept  appointments  with  his 
audiences  or  with  his  own  soul.  His  friends  tried  to 
hold  him  to  his  dates,  but  no  power  on  earth  could 
make  his  pen  catch  up  with  his  thoughts.  A  project 
for  serving  as  tutor  in  a  rich  family  near  Derby  had 
failed.  His  magazine,  The  Watchman,  had  come  to 
an  end  after  the  tenth  number,  on  May  13,  1796.  His 
first  child,  Hartley,  was  born  September  19.  On  the 
same  day,  however,  he  took  up  the  intellectual  guardian- 
ship of  Charles  Lloyd,  a  young  poet,  the  son  of  a  rich 
Quaker  of  Birmingham,  who  for  nearly  a  year  was  to 
live  with  him  constantly.  But  even  with  what  he  earned 
in  this  way  and  by  occasional  contributions  to  London 
newspapers,  Coleridge  was  submerged  in  poverty. 
Cottle  and  other  friends  made  occasional  offerings, 
which  were  gratefully  accepted.  Superiority  to  trifles, 
either  favourable  or  unfavourable,  is  a  form  of  mag- 
nanimity, and  the  great  soul  of  Coleridge  shines  almost 
unclouded  in  his  poems  written  during  this  nerve- 
racking  time.  Not  the  least  of  his  titles  to  our  love 
is  his  entire  freedom  from  the  vanity  of  authorship. 
He,  who  had  written  the  "  Poems  on  Various  Subjects," 
published  by  Cottle,  in  April,  1796,  could  be  so  self- 
forgetful  as  to  append  this  note  to  the  "  Lines  Written 
at  Shurton  Bars  ":  "  The  expression  '  green  radiance  ' 
is  borrowed  from  Mr.  Wordsworth,  a  poet  whose  versi- 
fication is  occasionally  harsh  and  his  diction  too  fre- 
quently obscure;  but  whom  I  deem  unrivalled  among 
the  writers  of  the  present  day  in  manly  sentiment, 
novel  imagery,  and  vivid  colouring." 

He  desired  to  find  a  cottage  in  the  country,  where 


304  COLERIDGE  [chap,  xiii 

he  could  live  more  cheaply  and  with  fewer  interruptions 
than  in  Bristol,  taking  with  him  his  wife  and  child 
and  his  disciple  Charles  Lloyd.*  To  his  other  troubles 
was  now,  towards  the  close  of  1796,  added,  the  demon 
Neuralgia.  To  combat  this  he  unsuspectingly  admitted 
a  more  terrible  demon,  Opium,  and  between  the  two 
his  distraction  was  complete.  For  peace  he  turned  to 
Thomas  Poole.  This  young  man,  who  was  seven  years 
his  senior,  lived  in  the  village  of  Nether  Stowey,  about 
thirty  miles  from  Bristol.  One  day  in  August,  1794, 
Poole  had  brought  two  strangers  to  call  at  the  house  of 
his  uncle,  who  lived  in  the  neighbouring  hamlet  of 
Upper  Stowey.  His  cousin  John,  who  was  fresh  from 
Oxford,  and  kept  a  diary  in  Latin,  recorded  his  impres- 
sions, which  Mrs.  Sandford  has  thus  translated  :f 

"  About  one  o'clock  Thomas  Poole  and  his  brother 
Richard,  Henry  Poole,  and  two  young  men,  friends  of 
his,  come  in.  These  two  strangers,  I  understand,  had 
left  Cambridge,  and  had  walked  nearly  all  through 
Wales.  One  is  an  undergraduate  of  Oxford,  the  other 
of  Cambridge.  Each  of  them  is  shamefully  hot  with 
Democratic  rage  as  regards  politics,  and  both  Infidel  as 
to  religion.  I  was  extremely  indignant.  At  last,  how- 
ever, about  two  o'clock,  they  all  go  away.  .  .  .  About 
seven  o'clock  Mr.  Reekes  comes  from  Stowey.  He  is 
very  indignant  over  the  odious  and  detestable  ill- 
feeling  of  those  two  young  men,  whom  he  had  met  at 
my  Uncle  Thomas's.  They  seemed  to  have  shown  their 
sentiments  more  plainly  there  than  with  us.  But 
enough  of  such  matters  !" 

This  is  an  interesting  example  of  the  kind  of  intercourse 
which  railways  and  a  profound  change  of  manners  have 
combined  to  render  very  rare.  People  were  more 
approachable  and  more  ready  to  discuss  matters  on 
which  they  disagreed,  than  is  now  generally  the  case. 
The  strangers,  of  course,  were  Southey  and  Coleridge. 

The  acquaintance  soon  ripened  into  friendship. 
Coleridge,  perhaps  in  connection  with  his  preaching 
in  the  Unitarian  chapel  at  Bridgwater,  visited  Poole  in 

*  E.  V.  Lucas,  "  The  Works  of  Charles  and  Mary  Lamb,"  Vol.  VI.,  p.  ioo. 
f  Mrs.  Sandford,  "  Thomas  Poole  and  his  Friends,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  103. 


i796]  NETHER  STOWEY  305 

September,  1795,  as  is  thus  recorded,  in  a  diary  kept 
by  the  latter's  cousin  Charlotte,  under  date  of  the  19th: 
"  Tom  Poole  has  a  friend  with  him  of  the  name  of 
Coleridge:  a  young  man  of  brilliant  understanding, 
great  eloquence,  desperate  fortune,  democratick  princi- 
ples, and  entirely  led  away  by  the  feelings  of  the 
moment." 

Three  weeks  later  Poole  wrote  to  Coleridge  congratu- 
lating him  on  his  marriage,  and  we  see  that  he  has 
already  assumed  the  tone  of  counsellor  and  comforter. 
On  the  very  day  the  last  Watchman  came  out,  Poole 
transmitted  to  the  penniless  and  discouraged  poet 
a  considerable  sum  of  money  which  he  had  collected 
as  a  testimonial,  and  sent  with  it  a  beautiful  letter. 
That  they  agreed  in  politics  is  shown  by  Coleridge's 
remark  in  a  letter  to  Poole,  March  30,  1796,  now  in  the 
British  Museum:  "  Burke's  Letter  to  a  Noble  Lord 
is  as  contemptible  in  style  as  in  matter — it  is  sad 
stuff." 

To  Poole,  then,  Coleridge  naturally  turned  at  the  end 
of  the  year,  when  illness  and  bad  fortune  drove  him  to 
seek  another  home.      Poole,  with  proper  caution,  de- 
scribed the  disadvantages  of  Nether  Stowey  and   the 
cottage  there  on  which  Coleridge  had  set  his  heart; 
but  the  latter  broke  into  such   transports  of  despair 
that  nothing  more  could  be  urged,  and  before  January  1 , 
1797,  he  was  settled,  uncomfortably  enough,  in  a  mean 
little  house  beside  the  village  street.     Nether  Stowey 
lies  on  the  north-eastern  slope  of  the  Quantock  Hills, 
eight  or  ten  miles  back  from  the  Bristol  Channel,  and 
may  have  to-day  a  population  of  six  or  seven  hundred. 
In  Thomas  Poole's  time  it  was  smaller.     It  is  built  in 
the  form  of  the  letter  Y.      Poole's  house,  which  was 
one  of  the  largest  in  the  place,  faced  the  left-hand  street, 
which  leads  into  the  hills  towards  Upper  Stowey.     Its 
garden  ran  back  almost  to  the  garden  of  the  Coleridge 
cottage,  which  faced  the  other  branch.     According  to 
the  poet's  estimates,  the  accuracy  of  which  my  own 
observation  leads  me  to  doubt,  he  had  an  acre  and  a 
half  of  ground  behind  his  cottage,  where,  before  he  had 
1.  20 


3o6  COLERIDGE  [chap,  xm 

been  in  the  place  three  weeks,  and  in  the  depth  of 
winter,  he  wrote:  "  I  raise  potatoes  and  all  manner  of 
vegetables;  have  an  orchard,  and  shall  raise  corn  (with 
the  spade)  enough  for  my  family.  We  have  two  pigs, 
and  ducks  and  geese.  A  cow  would  not  answer  to 
keep;  for  we  have  whatever  milk  we  want  from  T. 
Poole."  Not  even  the  memorial  tablet  which  now  dig- 
nifies the  little  house  can  make  it  other  than  very  plain. 
It  stands  elbow  to  elbow  with  other  plain  little  houses. 
According  to  Mrs.  Sandford,  "  in  Coleridge's  time  it 
would  seem  to  have  consisted  of  two  small  and  rather 
dark  little  parlours,  one  on  each  side  of  the  front  door, 
looking  straight  into  the  street,  and  a  small  kitchen 
behind,  wholly  destitute  of  modern  conveniences, 
and  where  the  fire  was  made  on  the  hearth  in  the  most 
primitive  manner  conceivable.  There  cannot  have  been 
more  than  three  or,  at  most,  four  bedrooms  above." 
But  if  his  own  quarters  were  cramped,  Coleridge  had  an 
escape  into  the  more  spacious  property  of  Poole,  who 
had  room  enough  and  a  well-chosen  library.  Nor  was 
there  a  bigger  heart  in  the  world  than  Poole's.  Poetry 
and  politics  were  his  intellectual  passions.  He  had 
taught  himself  and  had  made  others  teach  him  Latin 
and  French.  He  had  reserved  four  or  five  hours  of 
his  busy  day  for  reading. 

Poole  took  a  lively  interest  in  the  Revolution.  His 
cousin  Charlotte  wrote  of  him  in  her  diary :  "  I  wish 
he  would  cease  to  torment  us  with  his  democratick 
sentiments;  but  he  is  never  happy  until  the  subject  of 
politicks  is  introduced,  and,  as  we  all  differ  so  much 
from  him,  we  wish  to  have  no  conversation  about  it." 
He  suffered  some  petty  persecution  for  giving  a  copy 
of  "  The  Rights  of  Man  "  to  a  cabinet-maker,  and 
prevented  the  excited  people  of  Stowey  from  burning 
Tom  Paine  in  effigy.  For  some  years  he  cherished  the 
hope  of  making  a  journey  of  observation  through  the 
Western  republic,  and  he  treasured  a  lock  of  George 
Washington's  hair  which  an  American  friend  had  given 
him.  He  wore  his  own  hair  without  powder,  as  a  sign 
of  protest   against    the   war-tax   on    that    commodity. 


i796]  THOMAS  POOLE  307 

Although  he  inherited  considerable  property,  including 
a  tan-yard,  he  spent  some  time  as  a  journeyman  tanner 
on  the  outskirts  of  London  learning  the  mechanical 
details  of  his  trade.  He  was  an  embodiment  of  prac- 
tical good  sense  combined  with  theoretical  ability.  He 
wrote  the  article  on  Tanning  for  the  third  edition  of 
the  "  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,"  introduced  improved 
machinery,  managed  most  of  the  public  and  philan- 
thropic affairs  of  his  neighbourhood,  fought  the  slave- 
trade,  helped  to  support  Coleridge,  and  was  the  centre 
of  the  distinguished  group  who  made  the  obscure 
hamlet  of  Nether  Stowey  for  a  time  the  intellectual 
capital  of  England.  All  these  interests,  too,  he  kept 
up  without  detriment  to  the  energetic  handling  of  a 
large  private  business. 

Coleridge  spent  the  first  six  months  of  1797  at  Nether 
Stowey  revising  his  "  Poems  "  for  a  second  edition  and 
writing  his  tragedy  "  Osorio."  Charles  Lloyd  was  in- 
telligent, attractive,  and  devoted  to  his  instructor,  but 
extremely  delicate.  There  was  little  gardening,  after  all. 
On  Sundays  Coleridge  often  walked  to  Bridgwater,  eight 
miles  away,  or  to  Taunton,  somewhat  farther,  to  preach 
to  the  Unitarian  congregations  there.  This  sojourn 
was  one  of  his  few  green  isles  "  in  the  deep  wide  sea 
of  misery."  The  outdoor  life  was  good  for  his  health. 
Poole's  friendship  comforted  his  soul.  There  was  no 
immediate  cause  for  alarm  as  to  the  hostile  league  of 
those  "  two  giants,  Bread  and  Cheese."  His  poetic 
vein  was  proving  very  rich.  And  best  of  all,  he  was 
getting  out  the  ore.  Altogether,  we  may  treat  our- 
selves to  the  thought  that  it  was  a  right  happy  young 
man  who,  leaping  over  the  gate  at  Racedown,  ran 
across  the  triangular  field  to  salute  his  brother  poet. 
It  is  always  a  pleasure  to  think  of  Coleridge  happy. 
And  his  best  days  henceforth  are  those  spent  in  the 
society  of  William  and  Dorothy  Wordsworth. 

He  no  doubt  gave  them  a  most  enthusiastic  account 
of  Nether  Stowey.  Poole,  as  we  know,  was  built  accord- 
ing to  Wordsworth's  ideal,  an  example  of  what  an  English 
farmer    and    artisan    could    become.     His   attainments . 


3o8  COLERIDGE  [chap,  xiii 

Wordsworth  thought,  were,  in  kind  at  least,  not  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  better  sort  of  Westmorland  and  Cum- 
berland "  statesmen."  Coleridge,  of  course,  described 
Poole.  Probably,  too,  he  dilated  on  the  superior  beauty 
of  the  scenery  in  Somerset.  And  it  is  true  that  the  hills 
about  Racedown  are  bleak  compared  with  the  richly- 
wooded  heights  and  combes  of  the  Quantocks,  the  land- 
scape less  open  and  cheerful,  the  general  air  of  nature 
less  warm  and  opulent.  But  more  attractive  than  all 
his  descriptions,  there  was  Coleridge  himself.  Words- 
worth had  not  hitherto  been  appreciated;  Coleridge 
caught,  interpreted,  and  approved  his  every  expression. 
Wordsworth  was  still  in  rebellion  against  Church  and 
State,  and  had  been  perhaps  wondering  in  his  seclusion 
whether,  after  all,  there  were  any  other  young  men  quite 
so  extreme  as  himself.  Coleridge  made  no  concealment  of 
his  own  radical  views,  which  he  no  doubt  clothed  with 
splendour  and  paraded  with  pomp.  They  were  both 
Cambridge  men,  both  poets — though  undiscovered  by 
a  senseless  world — and  both  writing  tragedies.  In 
Dorothy's  heart  the  subtle  instincts  of  pity  and  womanly 
solicitude  were  stirred.  She  penetrated  their  guest's 
disguise,  and  behind  his  gay  and  fluent  speech  detected 
his  unrest,  his  anxiety,  his  self-reproach.  At  that 
moment  began  the  long  years  wherein  her  first  thought, 
next  to  William's  welfare,  ever  was  how  to  alleviate 
Coleridge's  suffering. 

J.  Dykes  Campbell,  in  his  "  Life  of  Coleridge,"  after 
reckoning  that  Coleridge  in  writing  to  Cottle  of  his 
intention  to  return  to  Stowey  on  Friday  meant 
June  1 6,  makes  the  rather  surprising  statement  that 
if  he  carried  out  this  plan  "  he  must  soon  have  gone 
back,  for  he  appears  to  have  arrived  again  at  Stowey 
from  Racedown  on  the  28th,  and  again  on  July  2, 
on  the  last  occasion  bringing  with  him  the  two  Words- 
worths  on  that  famous  visit  to  the  Quantock  country 
which  was  destined  to  be  prolonged  for  a  whole  year." 
Nether  Stowey  is  well  over  thirty  miles  from  Racedown 
by  the  roads  existing  at  that  time.  Coleridge  himself 
gives  the  distance  as  forty  miles.     Yet  such  "  post-haste 


i797]  THE  DRIVE  TO  STOWEY  309 

and  rummage  "  would  be  quite  in  keeping  with  his 
character.  Having  tasted  the  sweets  of  companionship 
with  the  Wordsworths,  he  would  think  nothing  of  flying 
back  to  sip  the  nectar  again  and  again.  Still,  it  is  not 
easy  to  find  time  for  two  more  visits  to  Racedown  after 
his  returning  to  Nether  Stowey  on  June  16.  Camp- 
bell mentions  as  his  authority  "  information  from  un- 
published letters,"  given  him  by  Mr.  Ernest  Hartley 
Coleridge.  One  of  these  letters  was  subsequently  pub- 
lished by  Mr.  Coleridge,*  and  confirms  only  part  of 
Campbell's  statement.  In  it  Coleridge  says:  "  I  had 
been  on  a  visit  to  Wordsworth's  at  Racedown,  near  Crew- 
kerne,  and  I  brought  him  and  his  sister  back  with  me, 
and  here  I  have  settled  them."  It  is  not  unlikely  that 
between  June  16  and  July  2,  Wordsworth  walked  over 
with  Coleridge  from  Racedown,  was  captivated  by  the 
beauty  of  the  Quantocks,  and  learned  that  a  good  house 
could  be  rented  on  extremely  easy  terms  not  far  from 
Coleridge,  to  whom  by  this  time  he  was  already  deeply 
attached.  At  any  rate,  he  and  his  sister  came  to  Nether 
Stowey  on  July  2,  1797,  apparently  with  no  intention 
of  returning  to  Dorsetshire. 

On  this  occasion  Coleridge  drove  and  Dorothy  sat 
beside  him.  No  doubt  they  brought  the  few  articles 
which  constituted  the  WTordsworths'  slight  impedimenta, 
and  of  course  five-year-old  Basil.  Coleridge  referred 
to  this  exploit  as  proof  of  his  ability  to  drive  a  one-horse 
chaise.  The  roads,  he  told  Southey,  were  execrable. 
This  journey  was  a  fitting  close  to  a  month  of  inter- 
mittent and  enthusiastic  talk,  of  thrilling  discoveries,  of 
frank  disclosures.  Their  acquaintance  ripened  quickly 
into  a  relation  for  which  even  "  friendship  "  is  too  cold 
a  word.  The  anxieties,  the  sorrows  of  Dorothy  Words- 
worth's life,  and  perhaps,  too,  her  intensest  joys,  dated 
from  that  happy  time.  "  My  sister,"  he  calls  her  after 
that,  and  she  was  brave  enough  to  remain  on  that  foot- 
ing through  the  years  to  come.  We  have  seen  how  un- 
restrained she  was  in  expressing  her  love  for  William. 

*  To   Robert  Southey,   July,    1797,  in  "  Letters  of  S.   T.   Coleridge," 
Vol.  I.,  p.  221. 


310  COLERIDGE  [chap,  xm 

To  this  other  love  she  grants  no  stronger  phrase  than 
"  dear  Col."  Not  until  her  mind  gave  way  beneath  the 
load  of  sympathy  and  suppressed  emotion,  and  the  light 
of  her  glad  youth  darkened  down  to  premature  old  age, 
did  those  about  her  half  understand.  "  Her  health 
broken  by  long  walks,"  indeed  !  Why  keep  up  this 
fiction,  when  the  truth  but  testifies  to  the  fulness  of 
her  womanly  nature  and  adds  a  crowning  touch  to  the 
beauty  of  her  character  ?  She  loved  Coleridge,  and  was 
able,  through  long  years,  not  of  mere  silence  and  with- 
drawal, but  of  close  intimacy,  to  transmute  her  love  into 
helpfulness,  forgetting  self  and  reverencing  every  obliga- 
tion. Did  she  perchance  strengthen  her  soul,  in  moments 
of  extreme  trial,  with  Godwin's  law  that  "  man  has  no 
rights,  but  only  duties  "  ?  The  story  of  Dorothy  Words- 
worth is  the  tenderest,  the  purest,  the  most  sacred  page 
in  the  annals  of  poetry.  "  She  never  told  her  love," 
but  her  sweet  innocency  never  taught  her  to  practise 
concealment  of  it ;  so  that  even  those  who  knew  her  well 
were  deceived  by  her  frankness  into  a  belief  that  she 
really  felt  towards  Coleridge  only  a  sisterly  solicitude 
and  the  affection  of  an  old  comrade. 

The  Wordsworths,  not  to  mention  Basil — whom  at 
this  juncture  nobody  mentions — appear  to  have  been 
crowded  somehow  into  that  little  house  in  Nether 
Stowey,  with  Coleridge  and  Mrs.  Coleridge,  and  Hartley 
the  baby,  and  Nanny  the  maid  ("  simple  of  heart, 
physiognomically  handsome,  and  scientific  in  vacci- 
mulgence  "),  and  to  have  stayed  there  the  two  weeks 
beginning  with  July  2.     Coleridge  writes  to  Cottle:* 

"  Stowey,  1797. 

"  Wordsworth  and  his  exquisite  sister  are  with  me. 
She  is  a  woman  indeed  !  in  mind,  I  mean,  and  heart; 
for  her  person  is  such,  that  if  you  expected  to  see  a 
pretty  woman,  you  would  think  her  rather  ordinary; 
if  you  expected  to  see  an  ordinary  woman,  you  would 
think  her  pretty  !  but  her  manners  are  simple,  ardent, 
impressive.  In  every  motion,  her  most  innocent  soul 
outbeams  so  brightly,  that  who  saw  would  say, 
Guilt  was  a  thing  impossible  in  her. 
*  Cottle's  "  Reminiscences,"  p.  144. 


i797]  CHARLES  LAMB  ARRIVES  311 

Her  information  various.  Her  eye  watchful  in  minutest 
observation  of  nature;  and  her  taste,  a  perfect  electrom- 
eter. It  bends,  protrudes,  and  draws  in,  at  subtlest 
beauties,  and  most  recondite  faults.  She  and  W.  desire 
their  kindest  regards  to  vou. — Your  ever  affectionate 
friend,  S.  T.  C." 

As  if  it  were  not  an  amazing  enough  coincidence  that 
three  persons  of  genius  should  be  sheltered  under  one 
mean  roof,  who  should  arrive  from  London  but  Charles 
Lamb  !  Lloyd,  be  it  observed,  had  had  several  attacks 
of  melancholia,  and  was  no  longer  living  at  Nether 
Stowey.  It  was  less  than  a  year  since  the  terrible  day 
when  Lamb's  dear  sister  Mary,  in  a  fit  of  insanity,  killed 
her  mother,  September  22,  1796.  Coleridge  had  for 
some  time  been  trying  to  persuade  his  old  schoolfellow 
to  visit  him,  and,  apparently  without  knowing  that  the 
Wordsworths  were  there,  Lamb  at  last  consented  to 
come  to  Nether  Stowey.  He  arrived  on  July  7,  and 
stayed  until  the  14th.  In  the  letter  to  Southey  already 
cited,  Coleridge  writes: 

"  Charles  Lamb  has  been  with  me  for  a  week.  He  left 
me  Friday  morning.  The  second  day  after  Wordsworth 
came  to  me,  dear  Sara  accidently  emptied  a  skillet  of 
boiling  milk  on  my  foot,  which  confined  me  during  the 
whole  time  of  C.  Lamb's  stay,  and  still  prevents  me 
from  all  walks  longer  than  a  furlong.  While  Words- 
worth, his  sister,  and  Charles  Lamb  were  out  one  even- 
ing, sitting  in  the  arbour  of  T.  Poole's  garden,  which 
communicates  with  mine,  I  composed  these  lines,  with 
which  I  am  pleased." 

Here  he  inserts  the  earliest  extant  and  no  doubt  original 
draft  of  his  delightful  poem,  "  This  Lime-Tree  Bower 
my  Prison,"  one  of  the  sweetest  and  most  tranquil  of 
his  compositions.  Twice  in  these  lines  appears  the  ex- 
pression, "  my  Sister  and  my  Friends."  In  a  copy 
which  he  wrote  for  Lloyd,  who  had  not  met  the  Words- 
worths,  and  could  better  picture  the  scene  without  them, 
he  changed  this  to  "  my  Sara  and  my  frierM,"  and  in 
the  printed  version,  which  he  prepared  after  his  sad 
estrangement  from  Wordsworth,  he  altered  it  to  "  my 


312  COLERIDGE  [chap,  xm 

gentle-hearted  Charles."  In  the  prefatory  note,  be- 
ginning "  In  the  June  of  1797  some  long-expected  friends 
paid  a  visit  to  the  author's  cottage,"  he  named  the 
month  incorrectly. 

It  was  an  extraordinary  company  that  strolled  back 
and  forth  between  Poole's  house  and  the  cottage,  and 
climbed  up  to  the  ancient  British  camp  above  the 
village,  and  wandered  through  the  wooded  hills.  Country 
people  meeting  them  stared  at  their  unconventional 
clothing,  and  commented  on  their  apparent  idleness. 
Coleridge  himself  was  hardly  yet  an  accepted  figure, 
and  all  Tom  Poole's  old  radicalism  was  remembered 
afresh.  Even  Mrs.  Coleridge  was  not  like  other  women. 
We  think  of  her  too  exclusively  as  a  careworn  mother, 
much  concerned  with  household  economy,  and  are  in- 
clined to  forget  that  she  married  with  the  expectation 
of  becoming  a  Pantisocrat  and  leading  a  very  different 
sort  of  life  from  most  women.  Moreover,  she  too  wrote 
verses.  The  other  three  were  extraordinary-looking 
persons.  William  was  tall  and  gaunt,  with  a  peculiar 
nervous  smile  that  played  about  the  corners  of  his 
mouth.  He  wore  his  hair  long,  straight,  and  un- 
powdered,  like  a  Jacobin.  Charles  Lamb  was  only 
twenty-two,  and  delighted  in  mystifying  people.  He 
and  Dorothy,  with  their  dark  skin  and  roving  eyes,  had 
a  foreign  air.  They  looked  enough  alike  to  be  members 
of  the  same  gipsy  band. 

It  is  probable  that  they  all,  in  spite  of  Coleridge's 
scalded  foot,  managed  to  inspect  the  property  which  it 
was  planned  that  Wordsworth  should  'rent.  Lamb 
reproached  himself  with  being  a  rather  silent  guest. 
There  was  much  talk,  and  Coleridge,  beyond  question, 
did  his  share;  but  Lamb  can  hardly  have  deserved  his 
own  censure.  They  were  entertained  at  Poole's,  and 
one  or  two  other  houses.  On  his  return  to  London, 
Lamb  wrote  to  his  host : 

"  I  feel  improvement  in  the  recollection  of  many  a 
casual  conversation.  The  names  of  Tom  Poole,  of 
Wordsworth  and  his  good  sister,  with  thine  and  Sara's, 
are  become  '  familiar  in  my  mouth  as  household  words.' 


i797]        HIS  HOMAGE  TO  WORDSWORTH  313 

You  would  make  me  very  happy,  if  you  think  W.  has 
no  objection,  by  transcribing  for  me  that  inscription  of 
his.  I  have  some  scattered  sentences  ever  floating  on 
my  memorv,  teasing  me  that  I  cannot  remember  more 
of  it." 

This  must  refer  to  the  "  Lines  left  upon  a  Seat  in  a 
Yew-Tree." 

A  pretty  clear  trace  of  these  conversations  remains  in 
a  few  sentences  of  that  letter  from  Coleridge  to  Southey 
which  I  have  already  quoted,  and  which  was  written 
just  after  Lamb's  departure,  and  we  can  see  in  them 
the  print  of  Wordsworth's  mind.  They  are  perhaps  the 
earliest  witnesses  to  that  understanding  between  Words- 
worth and  Coleridge  on  the  subject  of  poetic  diction 
which  resulted  in  "  Lyrical  Ballads  "  and  the  critical 
works  growing  out  of  that  venture. 

"  A  young  man,"  he  writes,  "  by  strong  feelings  is 
impelled  to  write  on  a  particular  subject,  and  this  is  all 
his  feelings  do  for  him.  They  set  him  upon  the  business 
and  then  they  leave  him.  He  has  such  a  high  idea  of 
what  poetry  ought  to  be,  that  he  cannot  conceive  that 
such  things  as  his  natural  emotions  may  be  allowed  to 
find  a  place  in  it;  his  learning  therefore,  his  fanc}^,  or 
rather  conceit,  and  all  his  powers  of  buckram  are  put 
on  the  stretch." 

It  must  have  been  Wordsworth's  natural  gifts  that 
won  Coleridge's  admiration;  certainly  not  his  learning. 
The  plastic  mind  of  Coleridge  respected  his  guest's 
superior  power  of  self-determination,  and  above  all, 
perhaps,  the  quality  of  spirit  which  made  him  regard 
his  natural  emotions  with  so  much  reverence  that  to 
dress  them  in  buckram  would  have  been  impossible. 
"  Wordsworth  is  a  very  great  man,"  wrote  Coleridge  to 
Southey  in  this  same  letter;  "  the  only  man  to  whom 
at  all  times  and  in  all  modes  of  excellence  I  feel  myself 
inferior." 

Alfoxden  is  a  long,  low,  and  very  beautiful  country- 
house,  about  four  miles  north-west  of  Nether  Stowey. 
It  is  surrounded  by  a  romantic  park,  heavily  wooded 
with  noble  oaks  and  beeches,  which  extends  far  back 


314  COLERIDGE  [chap,  xm 

into  the  Quantock  Hills.  The  road  from  Bridgwater  and 
Stowey  passes  below  the  house  at  the  foot  of  a  broad 
lawn  to  the  little  village  of  Holford.  The  brown  waters 
of  the  Bristol  Channel  bound  the  view  on  the  north-east. 
After  the  plainness,  not  to  say  dreariness,  of  Nether 
Stowey,  and  the  strictly  agricultural  character  of  all  the 
country  which  a  traveller  from  Bridgwater  sees  from 
the  road,  Alfoxden  has  a  somewhat  grand,  though  genial 
air.  It  is  much  larger  than  Rydal  Mount.  Miss  Words- 
worth was  not  exaggerating  when  she  called  it  a  man- 
sion. Seventy  head  of  deer  fed  in  the  glades  around  it, 
and  their  descendants  give  life  to  the  park  now.  The 
place  has  a  warm  and  open  look,  very  different  from 
that  of  Racedown.  But  it  has  been  described  by  an 
inimitable  pen.  Miss  Wordsworth  and  her  brother 
found  their  way  into  the  park  before  they  had  been  two 
days  at  Nether  Stowey,  and  she  wrote  on  July  4  :* 

"  There  is  everything  there;  sea,  woods  wild  as  fancy 
ever  painted,  brooks  clear  and  pebbly  as  in  Cumberland, 
villages  so  romantic;  and  William  and  I,  in  a  wander  by 
ourselves,  found  out  a  sequestered  waterfall  in  a  dell 
formed  by  steep  hills  covered  with  full-grown  timber- 
trees.  The  woods  are  as  fine  as  those  at  Lowther,  and 
the  country  more  romantic;  it  has  the  character  of  the 
less  grand  parts  of  the  neighbourhood  of  the  lakes." 

On  August  14,  writing  to  the  same  correspondent, 
and  now  from  Alfoxden  itself,  she  says : 

"  The  evening  that  I  wrote  to  you,  William  and  I  had 
rambled  as  far  as  this  house,  and  pryed  into  the  recesses 
of  our  little  brook,  but  without  any  more  fixed  thoughts 
upon  it  than  some  dreams  of  happiness  in  a  little  cottage 
and  passing  wishes  that  such  a  place  might  be  found 
out.  We  spent  a  fortnight  at  Coleridge's:  in  the  course 
of  that  time  we  heard  that  this  house  was  to  let,  applied 
for  it,  and  took  it.  Our  principal  inducement  was  Cole- 
ridge's society.  It  was  a  month  yesterday  since  we 
came  to  Alfoxden. 

"  The  house  is  a  large  mansion,  with  furniture  enough 
for  a  dozen  families  like  ours.  There  is  a  very  excellent 
garden,  well  stocked  with  vegetables  and  fruit.     The 

*  "  Memoirs,"  I.  102.  Bishop  Wordsworth  does  not  give  the  name  of 
Dorothy's  correspondent. 


i7WpvJiC**>  ALFOXDEN  S~aSC*s*W 

garden  is  at  the  end  of  the  house,  and  our  favourite 
parlour,  as  at  Racedown,  looks  that  way.  In  front  is  a 
little  court,  with  grass  plot,  gravel  walk,  and  shrubs; 
the  moss  roses  were  in  full  beauty  a  month  ago.  The 
front  of  the  house  is  to  the  south,  but  it  is  screened  from 
the  sun  by  a  high  hill  which  rises  immediately  from  it. 
This  hill  is  beautiful,  scattered  irregularly  and  abun- 
dantly with  trees,  and  topped  with  fern,  which  spreads 
a  considerable  way  down  it.  The  deer  dwell  here,  and 
sheep,  so  that  we  have  a  living  prospect.  From  the 
end  of  the  house  we  have  a  view  of  the  sea,  over  a  woody 
meadow-country ;  and  exactly  opposite  the  window 
where  I  now  sit  is  an  immense  wood,  whose  round  top 
from  this  point  has  exactly  the  appearance  of  a  mighty 
dome.  In  some  parts  of  this  wood  there  is  an  under 
grove  of  hollies  which  are  now  very  beautiful.  In  a 
glen  at  the  bottom  of  the  wood  is  the  waterfall  of  which 
I  spoke,  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  the  house.  We  are 
three  miles  from  Stowey,  and  not  two  miles  from  the 
sea.  Wherever  we  turn  we  have  woods,  smooth  downs, 
and  valleys  with  small  brooks  running  down  them, 
through  green  meadows,  hardly  ever  intercepted  with 
hedgerows,  but  scattered  over  with  trees.  The  hills  that 
cradle  these  valleys  are  either  covered  with  fern  and 
billberries  or  oak  woods,  which  are  cut  for  charcoal. 
.  .  .  Wralks  extend  for  miles  over  the  hill-tops;  the 
great  beauty  of  which  is  their  wild  simplicity :  they  are 

Perfectly  smooth,  without  rocks.  The  Tor  of  Glaston- 
ury  is  before  our  eyes  during  more  than  half  of  our 
walk  to  Stowey;  and  in  the  park  wherever  we  go,  keep- 
ing about  fifteen  yards  above  the  house,  it  makes  a  part 
of  our  prospect."  /{ 

Alfoxden  belonged  to  a  family  named  St.  Albyn.  A 
lease  of  the  property,  including  house,  furniture,  gardens, 
stables,  and  coach-house,  was  signed  July  14  by  their 
tenant,  John  Bartholomew,  and  William  Wordsworth, 
and  witnessed  by  Thomas  Poole,  the  rental  being  only 
twenty-three  pounds,  for  one  year,  Bartholomew  to  pay 
all  rates  and  taxes,  and  keep  the  premises  in  good 
tenantable    repair.*     Mrs.    Sandford    conjectures    that 

*  Mrs.  Sandford,  "  Thomas  Poole  and  his  Friends,"  I.  225.  The 
original  agreement  is  in  the  British  Museum,  and  reads  as  follows: 

"  Mem.  of  agreement  made  this  14th  day  of  July  1797  between  John 
Bartholemewand  Wm.  Wordsworth — that  is  to  say,  the  said  John  Bai  thole- 


2,i6  COLERIDGE  [chap,  xm 

this  merely  nominal  price  was  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
sole  object  of  letting  the  place  at  all  was  to  keep  the 
house  inhabited  during  the  owner's  minority.  It  may 
be  remarked  also  that  the  war  had  seriously  checked 
the  prosperity  of  the  country,  and  many  great  families 
were  glad  to  get  anything  for  their  country-seats. 

From  the  letters  just  quoted,  it  might  seem  that  when 
the  Wordsworths  came  to  visit  Coleridge,  they  did  not 
dream  of  renting  Alfoxden;  yet  the}'-  appear  to  have 
come  away  from  Racedown  with  bag  and  baggage,  for 
they  took  possession  of  their  new  place  at  once.  When 
Miss  Wordsworth  wrote,  "  It  was  a  month  yesterday 
since  we  came  to  Alfoxden,"  she  probably  meant  four 
weeks,  which  would  be  July  16.  Lamb  left  Nether 
Stowey  July  14.  Poole,  of  course,  was  active  in  securing 
Alfoxden  for  Wordsworth.  It  was  probably  in  the 
interval  between  July  14  and  17  that  Coleridge  wrote 
to  Poole  (manuscript  in  the  British  Museum):  "  I  pray 
you  come  over  if  possible  by  eleven  o'clock  that  we  may 
have  Wordsworth's  Tragedy  read  under  the  trees." 

Immediately  after  Lamb's  departure  he  was  succeeded 
at  Nether  Stowey  by  another  invited  guest.  This  was 
John  Thelwall,  the  political  agitator,  with  whom  Cole- 
ridge had  for  some  months  been  in  frequent  correspon- 
dence. Coming  to  Coleridge's  house  late  on  July  17, 
he  found  that  his  host  was  spending  the  night  at  Alfox- 
den.    The  necessity  of  "  superintending  the  wash-tub  " 


mew  agrees  to  let  to  the  said  Wm.  Wordsworth,  Allfoxen  House,  Furniture, 
Gardens,  Stables,  and  Coach-house,  etc.,  and  to  put  him  in  immediate 
possession  of  the  same,  to  hold  the  same  for  one  year  from  midsummer  last 
at  the  rent  of  twenty-three  pounds,  the  said  John  Bartholemew  to  dis- 
charge every  rate  and  tax  whatever,  and  to  keep  the  premises  in  good 
tenantable  repair;  and  the  said  Wm.  Wordsworth  agrees,  in  case  he  quits 
the  house,  etc.,  at  the  end  of  the  year,  to  give  the  said  John  Bartholemew 
three  months  notice  of  the  same;  and  it  is  further  agreed  that  in  case  the 
said  Wm.  Wordsworth  retains  the  house,  etc.,  beyond  the  present  year, 
he  shall  be  allowed  by  the  said  John  Bartholemew  out  of  the  rent  of 
twenty- three  pounds  any  diminution  he  might  cause  in  the  present  assessed 
taxes. 

"  As  witness  our  hands, 

"  John  Bartholemew. 
"  Wm.  Wordsworth." 
"  Witness,  Thos.  Poole." 


17971  "  CITIZEN  JOHN  "  317 

had  brought  Mrs.  Coleridge  home,  but  next  morning  she 
and  Thelwall  hastened  over  to  Alfoxden,  four  miles 
away,  in  time,  as  we  are  told,  "  to  call  Samuel  and  his 
friend  Wordsworth  up  to  breakfast."*  Thus  began  a 
day  which  must  have  remained  bright  in  Thelwall 's 
memory  for  ever.  "  We  are  a  most  philosophical 
party,"  he  declared,  "  the  enthusiastic  group  consisting 
of  C.  and  his  Sara,  W.  and  his  sister,  and  myself,  with- 
out any  servant,  male  or  female."  They  rambled 
through  the  grounds,  exploring  its  woods  and  its  ro- 
mantic dell.  They  "  passed  sentence  on  the  produc- 
tions and  characters  of  the  age,"  and  gave  full  vent  to 
their  enthusiasm  in  poetical  and  philosophic  flights. 
11  Citizen  John,"  cried  Coleridge,  as  they  gazed  at  the 
water  tumbling  in  its  dim  recess,  "  this  is  a  fine  place  to 
talk  treason  in."  "  Nay  !  Citizen  Samuel,"  rejoined  the 
tired  fighter,  "  it  is  rather  a  place  to  make  a  man  forget 
that  there  is  any  necessity  for  treason."! 

Though  this  appears  to  have  been  their  first  meeting, 
Coleridge  and  Thelwall  had  been  in  correspondence  for 
over  a  year.  In  December,  1 796,  Coleridge  had  written : 
"  Though  personally  unknown,  I  really  love  you,  and 
can  count  but  few  human  beings  whose  hand  I  would 
welcome  with  a  more  hearty  grasp  of  friendship." 
There  is  in  the  British  Museum  a  letter  from  Thelwall 
to  Coleridge,  May  10,  1796,  mentioning  previous  corre- 
spondence between  them,  and  referring  to  a  sonnet  by 
Coleridge  in  Thelwall's  honour,  containing  the  words: 
"  Thou,  mid  thickest  fire,  Leap'st  on  the  perilous  wall." 

The  person  thus  esteemed  by  Coleridge  was  about 

*  Letter  from  Thelwall  to  his  wife,  dated  Alfoxden,  July  18,  1797.  See 
Mrs.  Sandford's  "  Thomas  Poole  and  his  Friends,"  I.  232. 

t  Coleridge's  "  Table  Talk,"  July  26,  1830.  Wordsworth's  version  of 
this  little  incident,  as  recorded  in  the  Fenwick  note  to  his  "  Anecdote  for 
Fathers,"  is  characteristic  of  the  way  in  which,  in  the  latter  part  of  his 
life,  he  made  light  of  his  early  connection  with  radicals  like  Thelwall: 
"  I  remember  once  when  Coleridge,  he,  and  I  were  seated  together  upon 
the  turf,  on  the  brink  of  a  stream  in  the  most  beautiful  part  of  the  most 
beautiful  glen  of  Alfoxden,  Coleridge  exclaimed:  '  This  is  a  place  to  recon- 
cile one  to  all  the  jarrings  and  conflicts  of  the  wide  world.'  '  Nay,'  said 
Thelwall,  '  to  make  one  forget  them  altogether.'  "  Who  can  doubt  that 
Coleridge  has  reported  the  words  correctly  ? 


318  COLERIDGE  [chap,  xm 

eight  years  his  senior,  a  self-made  man,  who  during  a 
youth  of  poverty,  in  which  he  tried  several  occupations, 
never  ceased  to  read  and  to  practise  composition.  He 
was  deeply  affected  by  the  French  Revolution.  He 
perceived  its  social  significance.  As  M.  Charles  Cestre 
has  well  said:*  "  He  played  a  prominent  part  in  the 
first  democratic  agitation  in  England,  gained  great 
ascendancy  over  the  more  educated  elements  of  the 
labouring  class,  and  cannot  but  have  been  powerfully 
instrumental  in  awakening  the  lower  orders  to  the 
consciousness  of  their  opportunities." 

In  the  height  of  the  reactionary  panic  in  May,  1794, 
Thelwall  was  arrested,  his  house  was  searched,  his 
library  was  taken  from  him  and  never  restored,  his 
writings  were  scattered,  and  he  was  committed  to  await 
trial  on  the  flimsiest  of  testimony.! 

He  lay  for  five  months  untried  in  the  Tower,  and  for 
one  month  in  Newgate  prison,  "  in  the  dead-hole,  or 
charnel-house,  where  the  corpses  of  such  prisoners  as 
died  of  diseases  were  placed  before  the  burial.' 'J 

In  spite  of  the  desperate  and  contemptible  measures 
taken  by  Government  to  procure  conviction,  Thelwall, 
like  Hardy,  was  acquitted  of  the  charge  of  high  treason. 
His  sufferings  only  increased  his  zeal,  and  on  his  release, 
as  he  was  not  allowed  to  speak  in  public  places,  he 
fitted  up  a  lecture-room  of  his  own,  where  he  spoke 
twice  a  week  to  large  audiences,  expounding  the  philo- 
sophy of  the  Revolution,  and  pleading  such  causes  as 
electoral  reform  and  liberty  of  assembly.  He  published 
his  lectures  in  a  periodical,  The  Tribune,  which  he 
owned  and  edited.     After  the  great  mass-meeting  of 

*  "  John  Thelwall:  a  Pioneer  of  Democracy  and  Social  Reform  in  Eng- 
land during  the  French  Revolution,"  p.  13.     London,  1906. 

f  Thelwall  says:  "  Every  manuscript  was  seized,  upon  whatever  sub- 
ject— Poems,  Novels,  Dramas,  Literary  and  Philosophical  Dissertations — all 
the  unfinished  labours  of  ten  years'  application.  Successful  or  abortive, 
it  matters  not;  they  were  the  fruits,  the  creations  of  my  own  industry,  and 
therefore  were  more  absolutely  my  property  than  the  estate  of  the  landed 
gentleman  or  the  stock-in-trade  of  the  manufacturer.  Whether  they  are 
worth  sixpence  or  six  thousand  pounds  is  of  no  consequence."  See  Vol.  I., 
p.  90,  of  The  Tribune,  London,  1795. 

%  "  Cestre,"  p.  95. 


i797  THELWALL  THE  AGITATOR  319 

December  7,  1795,  in  Marylebone  Fields,  the  Govern- 
ment renewed  its  pressure,  his  supporters  fell  away, 
and  he  was  obliged  to  give  up  lecturing.  The  Tribune 
was  suppressed  in  April,  1796,  but  Thelwall  continued 
publishing  his  doctrines  in  pamphlets  until  the  close  of 
the  year.  He  earned  a  precarious  living,  and  managed 
to  continue  his  political  propaganda,  by  lecturing  in 
many  parts  of  the  country  on  subjects  not  immediately 
revolutionary,  such  as  Roman  history.  But  his  activi- 
ties became  more  and  more  difficult  and  unprofitable  as 
the  rising  war-passion  swept  men  and  parties  into  the 
Tory  ranks.  He  was  frequently  mobbed,  and  the 
magistrates  of  some  of  the  towns  where  he  spoke 
refused  to  give  him  protection.  He  had  few  friends 
left  except  Coleridge.  He  was  attracted  to  the  latter 
not  only  personally,  but  for  the  rather  amusing  reason 
that  he  conceived  of  him  as  one  who  had  found  a  way 
to  combine  intellectual  freedom  with  agricultural  suc- 
cess. Coleridge,  on  the  other  hand,  was  interested  in 
Thelwall,  not  only  as  a  talented  and  brave  revolutionist, 
but  as  an  atheist,  who  might  be  converted  to  more 
moderate  religious  views.* 

Coleridge  charged  his  correspondent  with  "  anti- 
religious  bigotry."  To  a  man  of  his  argumentative  dis- 
position, the  task  of  converting  such  a  person  was  very 
alluring.  He  himself  could  so  easily  see  many  sides  to 
all  great  philosophical  questions,  that  the  simple  dog- 
matic Thelwall  must  have  seemed  to  him  a  mere  child. 
He  had  not  found  it  easy  to  alter  the  mood  of  his  other 
new-found  friend,  Wordsworth,  whom  he  termed  "  a 
semi-atheist."  He  was  proud  of  having  won  Charles 
Lloyd  "to  a  conviction  of  the  truth  of  Christianity, 
.  .  .  for  he  had  been,  if  not  a  deist,  yet  quite  a  sceptic."f 
The  half-dozen  letters  in  which  he  poured  out  his  heart 
to  Thelwall  before  ever  meeting  him  are  among  the  live- 
liest and  most  affectionate  Coleridge  ever  wrote.     Small 

*  See  the  letter  from  Coleridge  to  Thelwall,  May  13,  1796,  in  "  Letters 
of  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,"  edited  by  E.  11.  Coleridge,  Vol.  I.,  p.  159. 

f  "  Letters  of  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,"  edited  by  E.  H.  Coleridge, 
Vol.  I.,  p.  170. 


320  COLERIDGE  [chap,  xm 

wonder  that  the  persecuted  and  discouraged  agitator 
sought  at  last  to  enjoy  his  presence,  and  see  if  there  was 
any  chance  of  settling  in  his  neighbourhood. 

The  world  has  long  ago  forgotten,  if  it  ever  indeed 
admitted,  that  Thelwall  was  a  poet.  Yet  he  was  the 
author  of  much  verse.  Its  quality  is  below  mediocrity. 
But  the  subjects  he  chose  and  the  nature  of  his  attempt 
are  not  without  significance  to  a  student  of  Wordsworth, 
as  M.  Cestre  has  shown.  The  plan  of  Thelwall 's  "  Peri- 
patetic "  is  similar  in  its  mechanism  to  that  of  "  The 
Excursion,"  and  it  is  perhaps  not  too  fanciful  to  think 
that  in  "  Michael  "  we  have  a  reminiscence  of  Thelwall 's 
poem,  "  On  Leaving  the  Bottoms  of  Gloucestershire, 
August,  1797,"  in  which  he  thus  describes  the  cottages 
of  weavers : 

Industry, 
Even  frorn  the  dawning  to  the  western  ray, 
And  oft  by  midnight  taper,  patient  plies 
Her  task  assiduous ;  and  the  day  with  songs, 
The  night  with  many  an  earth-star,  far  descried, 
By  the  lone  traveller,  cheers  amid  her  toil. 

Thelwall  and  Wordsworth  agreed  perfectly  in  their 
opposition  to  war  and  their  belief  that  the  poor  of  Eng- 
land were  oppressed.  Thelwall  was  one  of  the  first  ob- 
servers to  sound  a  warning  against  the  dangers  of  the 
industrial  movement  just  beginning,  which  tended  to 
attract  the  population  into  large  centres  and  to  exploit 
children's  labour.     He  raised  his  voice  against 

the  unwieldy  pride 
Of  Factory  overgrown,  when  Opulence, 
Dispeopling  the  neat  cottage,  crowds  his  walls 
(Made  pestilent  by  congregated  lungs 
And  lewd  association)  with  a  race 
Of  infant  slaves,  brok'n  timely  to  the  yoke 
Of  unremitting  drudgery. 

All  that  rendered  Thelwall  interesting  to  Coleridge, 
Wordsworth,  and  Thomas  Poole,  made  him  an  object 
of  horror  to  other  people  in  the  Stowey  neighbourhood. 
Poole's  cousin  Charlotte  wrote  in  her  diary:* 

*  Mrs.  Sandford's  "  Thomas  Poole  and  his  Friends,"  I.  235. 


1797]  A  DANGEROUS  FRIEND  321 

"  July  23,   1797. — We  are  shocked  to  hear  that  Mr 
Thelwall    has    spent    some    time  at    Stowey   this   week 
with  Mr.  Coleridge,  and  consequently  with  Tom  Poole. 
Alfoxton  House  is  taken  by  one  of  the  fraternity,  and 
Woodlands  by  another.     To  what  are  we  coming  ?" 

The  chief  offender  had  left  Nether  Stowey  by  July  27, 
for  on  that  date,  being  his  birthday,  he  wrote  some 
verses  at  the  neighbouring  town  of  Bridgwater.  They 
were  composed,  as  their  title  informs  us,  "  during  a  long 
Excursion  in  quest  of  a  peaceful  Retreat,"  and  contain 
a  pathetic  expression  of  hope  that  the  recent  pleasant 
days  may  sometime  be  renewed : 

Ah  !   'twould  be  sweet,  beneath  the  neighb'ring  thatch, 

In  philosophic  amity  to  dwell, 

Inditing  moral  verse,  or  tale,  or  theme, 

Gay  or  instructive;  and  it  would  be  sweet 

With  kindly  interchange  of  mutual  aid 

To  delve  our  little  garden  plots,  the  while 

Sweet  converse  flow'd,  suspending  oft  the  arm 

And  half-driven  spade,  while,  eager,  one  propounds, 

And  listens  one,  weighing  each  pregnant  word, 

And  pondering  fit  reply,  that  may  untwist 

The  knolly  point — perchance,  of  import  high — 

Of  moral  Truth,  of  Causes  infinite, 

Created  Power,  or  uncreated  Worlds 

Eternal  and  uncaus'd  !  or  whatsoe'er 

Of  Metaphysic,  or  of  Ethic  Lore, 

The  Mind,  with  curious  subtlety,  pursues — 

Agreeing  or  dissenting — sweet  alike, 

When  wisdom,  and  not  Victory,  the  end.  .  .  . 

There  is  a  letter  from  Coleridge  to  John  Chubb,  of 
Bridgwater,  written  in  1797  or  1798,*  on  the  subject  of 
Thelwall 's  difficulty  in  finding  a  place  where  he  could 
live  unmolested.  Mr.  Chubb,  who  appears  to  have  been 
an  estate-agent,  is  urged  to  find  a  cottage  for  Thelwall 
somewhere  within  five  or  six  miles  of  Stowey. 

"  He  has  found  by  experience,"  writes  the  sympathetic 
poet,  "  that  neither  his  own  health  or  that  of  his  wife 
and  children  can  be  preserved  in  London ;  and  were  it 
otherwise,  yet  his  income  is  inadequate  to  maintain  him 

*  Printed  by  J.  L.  Hammond  in  his  "  C.  J.  Fox,  a  Political  Study," 
p.  tax,  note. 

I.  -I 


322  COLERIDGE  [chap,  xm 

there.  He  is  therefore  under  the  necessity  of  fixing  his 
residence  in  the  country.  But,  by  his  particular  exer- 
tions in  the  propagation  of  those  principles  which  we 
hold  sacred  and  of  the  highest  importance,  he  has 
become,  as  you  well  know,  particularly  unpopular, 
through  every  part  of  the  kingdom — in  every  part  of 
the  kingdom,  therefore,  some  odium  and  inconvenience 
must  be  incurred  by  those  who  should  be  instrumental  in 
procuring  him  a  cottage  there — but  are  Truth  and  Liberty 
of  so  little  importance  that  we  owe  no  sacrifice  to  them  ?" 

Thelwall  desired  to  take  a  house  at  Nether  Stowey, 
and  settle  there  permanently  with  his  wife  and  children, 
but  Coleridge,  in  the  autumn,  warned  him  not  to  come. 
Without  Poole's  help  it  would  be  impossible,  he  says,* 
and  "  to  such  interference  on  his  part  there  are  insuper- 
able difficulties."  "  The  whole  malignity  of  the  Aristo- 
crats," he  continues,  "  will  converge  to  him,  as  to  one 
point.  His  tranquillity  will  be  perpetually  interrupted; 
his  business  and  his  credit  hampered  and  distressed  by 
vexatious  calumnies;  the  ties  of  relationship  weakened, 
perhaps  broken;  and,  lastly,  his  poor  old  mother  made 
miserable."  Then  from  what  follows  we  have  the  in- 
formation that  Wordsworth  at  the  time  of  his  coming 
had  been  regarded  as  a  dangerous  man  : 

"  Very  great  odium  Tom  Poole  incurred  by  bringing 
me  here;  my  peaceable  manners,  and  known  attachment 
to  Christianity,  had  almost  worn  it  away,  when  Words- 
worth came,  and  he,  likewise  by  T.  Poole's  agency, 
settled  here.  You  cannot  conceive  the  tumult,  calum- 
nies, and  apparatus  of  threatened  persecutions,  which 
the  event  has  occasioned  round  about  us.  If  you,  too, 
should  come,  I  am  afraid  that  even  riots,  and  dangerous 
riots,  might  be  the  consequence.  Either  of  us  separ- 
ately would  perhaps  be  tolerated ;  but  all  three  together 
— what  can  it  be  less  than  plot  and  damned  conspiracy  ? — 
a  school  for  the  propagation  of  Demagogy  and  Atheism  ?" 

In  another  letter,  of  about  the  same  time,  he  says:f 

"  I  am  sad  at  heart  about  you  on  many  accounts,  but 
chiefly  anxious  for  this  present  business.     The  aristo- 

*  Mrs.  Sandford,    '  Thomas  Poole  and  his  Friends,"  I.  237. 

|   "  Letters  oi  S.  T.  Coleridge,"  edited  by  E.  H.  Coleridge,  I.  232. 


1797]  DRIVEN  FROM  EDEN  323 

crats  seem  to  persecute  even  Wordsworth.  But  we  will  at 
least  not  yield  without  a  struggle  ;  and  if  I  cannot  get  you 
near  me,  it  shall  not  be  for  want  of  a  trial  on  my  part." 

We  have  here  a  reference  to  a  fact  which  gives  one  some 
idea  of  the  state  of  the  public  mind.  Coleridge,  unsup- 
ported by  other  testimony,  might  be  suspected  of  ex- 
aggerating very  mild  alarms  into  something  more  con- 
siderable. But  it  is  known  that  someone  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood sent  word  to  the  authorities  that  disaffected 
persons  were  gathering  about  Nether  Stowey,  and  a 
Government  spy  was  sent  down  to  observe  them.  Mrs. 
St.  Albyn,  the  mother  of  the  heir  to  Alfoxden,  was  in- 
voked to  look  into  Wordsworth's  case.  She  reprimanded 
her  tenant  or  agent,  Bartholomew,  for  having  let  the 
house  to  him,  and  notice  was  given  the  poet  to  quit  the 
place  on  the  expiration  of  his  term,  which  would  be  the 
next  June.  Poole,  who  had  to  bear  the  responsibility, 
shouldered  his  part  of  the  blame  right  manfully,  and 
wrote  a  letter  of  explanation  to  the  incensed  "  aristo- 
crat," but  in  vain.  The  important  parts  of  his  letter  to 
Mrs.  St.  Albyn  are  as  follows: 

"  Madam, — I  have  heard  that  Mr.  Bartholomew  oi 
Putsham  has  incurred  your  displeasure  by  letting  All- 
foxen  House  to  Mr.  Wordsworth.  As  it  was  through 
me  that  Mr.  Wordsworth  was  introduced  to  Mr.  Bartholo- 
mew as  a  tenant,  I  take  the  liberty  of  addressing  to  you 
this  letter,  simply  to  state  the  circumstances  attending 
the  business,  and  to  say  a  few  words  for  Mr.  Wordsworth 
and  his  connections.  ...  As  for  Mr.  WTordsworth,  I 
believe  him  to  be  in  every  respect  a  gentleman.  I  have 
not  known  him  personally  long,  but  I  had  heard  of  his 
family  before  I  knew  him.  Dr.  Fisher,  our  late  Vicar, 
and  one  of  the  Canons  of  Windsor,  had  often  mentioned 
to  me,  as  his  particular  and  respected  friend,  Mr.  Cook- 
son,  Mr.  Wordsworth's  uncle,  and  also  one  of  the  Canons 
of  Windsor.  This  circumstance  was  sufficient  to  con- 
vince me  of  the  respectability  of  Mr.  Wordsworth's 
family.  You  may,  upon  my  honour,  rest  assured  that 
no  tenant  could  have  been  found  for  Allfoxen  whom,  if 
you  knew  him,  you  would  prefer  to  Mr.  Wordsworth. 
His  family  is  small,  consisting  of  his  sister,  who  has 
principally  lived  with  her  uncle,  Mr.  Cookson,  a  child 


324  COLERIDGE  [chap,  xin 

of  five  years  old,  the  son  of  a  friend  of  his,  and  one  ex- 
cellent female  servant.  .  .  .  But  I  am  informed  you 
have  heard  that  Mr.  Wordsworth  does  keep  company, 
and  on  this  head  I  fear  the  most  infamous  falsehoods 
have  reached  your  ears.  Mr.  Wordsworth  is  a  man  fond 
of  retirement — fond  of  reading  and  writing — and  has 
never  had  above  two  gentlemen  at  a  time  with  him. 
By  accident  Mr.  Thelwall,  as  he  was  travelling  through 
the  neighbourhood,  called  at  Stowey.  The  person  he 
called  on  at  Stowey  took  him  to  Allfoxen.  No  person 
at  Stowey  nor  Mr.  Wordsworth  knew  of  his  coming. 
Mr.  Wordsworth  had  never  spoken  to  him  before,  nor, 
indeed,  had  anyone  of  Stowey.  Surely  the  common 
duties  of  hospitality  were  not  to  be  refused  to  any  man ; 
and  who  would  not  be  interested  in  seeing  such  a  man 
as  Thelwall,  however  they  may  disapprove  of  his  senti- 
ments or  conduct  ?  God  knows  we  are  all  liable  to  err, 
and  should  bear  with  patience  the  difference  in  one 
another's  opinions.  Be  assured,  and  I  speak  it  from 
my  own  knowledge,  that  Mr.  Wordsworth,  of  all  men 
alive,  is  the  last  who  will  give  anyone  cause  to  complain 
of  his  opinions,  his  conduct,  or  his  disturbing  the  peace 
of  anyone.  Let  me  beg  you,  madam,  to  hearken  to  no 
calumnies,  no  party  spirit,  nor  to  join  with  any  in  dis- 
turbing one  who  only  wishes  to  live  in  tranquillity.  I 
will  pledge  myself  in  every  respect  that  you  will  have 
no  cause  to  complain  of  Mr.  Wordsworth.  You  have 
known  me  from  my  youth,  and  know  my  family — I 
should  not  risk  my  credit  with  you  in  saying  what  I 
could  not  answer  for. — Believe  me,  with  sincere  respect, 
your  very  obedient  and  obliged— Thomas  Poole. 

"  September  16,  1797."* 

Mrs.  Sandford  tells  a  curious  anecdote  about  Poole's 
cousins  at  Upper  Stowey: 

"  Once  Tom  Poole,  being  there  with  his  friends, 
begged  Penelope  to  sing  '  Come,  ever-smiling  Liberty  !' 
('  Judas  Maccabaeus  ')  for  Coleridge  and  Wordsworth. 
Many  years  afterwards  she  related  the  circumstance  to 
her  daughter,  and  told  how  she  persistently  selected 
another  song.  '  I  could  not  sing  it,'  she  said;  '  I  knew 
what  they  meant  by  their  liberty.'  " 

*  The  rough  draft  of  this  letter  is  in  the  British  Museum,  and  shows  by 
its  many  erasures  and  corrections  that  Poole  felt  he  was  undertaking  a 
very  delicate  mission. 


i797]  ANECDOTE  ABOUT  A  SPY  325 

A  spy  could  hardly  have  come  into  this  extremely 
patriotic  neighbourhood  without  his  business  being  dis- 
covered, and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  a  spy  came  to 
observe  the  friends.  Probably  much  wise  advice  was 
offered  in  this  case  by  ignorant  villagers  puzzled  by  the 
unconventional  dress  and  manner  of  the  strangers,  and 
by  officious  persons  who  felt  that  they  owed  it  to  the 
country  to  see  that  no  Jacobins  were  tolerated  in  Somer- 
set. These  petty  persecutions,  and  especially  the  de- 
scent and  discomfiture  of  the  spy,  must  have  amused 
the  two  poets,  and  added  a  delightful  spice  of  romance 
to  their  daily  walks.  We  must  remember  how  young 
they  were.  Coleridge  could  not  refrain  from  telling  the 
story  with  mock-solemn  detail,  in  the  midst  of  a  very 
serious  part  of  "  Biographia  Literaria."  The  opening 
chapters  of  that  work  were  written  in  181 5,  when  he 
was  subject  to  a  mood  of  reconcilement  and  reaction. 
He  interrupts  his  eulogy  of  Burke  to  build  the  following 
narrative,  which  was  at  least  based  on  fact,  though  gay 
exaggeration  laughs  from  every  word : 

"  In  addition  to  the  gentleman,  my  neighbour,  whose 
garden  joined  on  to  my  little  orchard,  and  the  cultiva- 
tion of  whose  friendship  had  been  my  sole  motive  in 
choosing  Stowey  for  my  residence,  I  was  so  fortunate 
as  to  acquire,  shortly  after  my  settlement  there,  an 
invaluable  blessing  in  the  society  and  neighbourhood  of 
one  to  whom  I  could  look  up  with  equal  reverence, 
whether  I  regarded  him  as  a  poet,  a  philosopher,  or  a 
man.  His  conversation  extended  to  almost  all  subjects, 
except  physics  and  politics ;  with  the  latter  he  never 
troubled  himself.  Yet  neither  my  retirement  nor  my 
utter  abstraction  from  all  the  disputes  of  the  day  could 
secure  me  in  those  jealous  times  from  suspicion  and 
obloquy,  which  did  not  stop  at  me,  but  extended  to  my 
excellent  friend,  whose  perfect  innocence  was  even 
abused  as  a  proof  of  his  guilt.  One  of  the  many  busy 
sycophants  of  that  day  (I  here  use  the  word  sycophant 
in  its  original  sense,  as  a  wretch  who  flatters  the  pre- 
vailing party  by  informing  against  his  neighbours , 
under  pretence  that  they  are  exporters  of  prohibited 
figs  or  fancies  !  for  the  moral  application  of  the  term  it 
matters  not  which)  one  of  these  sycophantic  law- 
mongrels,  discoursing  on  the  politics  of  the  neighbour- 


326  COLERIDGE  [chap,  xm 

hood,  uttered  the  following  deep  remark :  '  As  to  Cole- 
ridge, there  is  not  so  much  harm  in  him,  for  he  is  a 
whirlbrain  that  talks  whatever  comes  uppermost ;  but 
that — —  !  He  is  the  dark  traitor.  Yon  never  heard 
HIM  say  a  syllable  on  the  subject.'   .   .   . 

"  The  dark  guesses  of  some  zealous  quidnunc  met  with 
so  congenial  a  soil  in  the  grave  alarm  of  a  titled  Dog- 
berry of  our  neighbourhood,  that  a  SPY  was  actually 
sent  down  from  the  Government  pour  surveillance  of 
myself  and  friend.  There  must  have  been  not  only 
abundance,  but  variety,  of  these  honourable  men  at  the 
disposal  of  Ministers ;  for  this  proved  a  very  honest 
fellow.  After  three  weeks'  truly  Indian  perseverance 
in  tracking  us  (for  we  were  commonly  together),  during 
all  which  time  seldom  were  we  out  of  doors,  but  he  con- 
trived to  be  within  hearing  (and  all  the  time  utterly 
unsuspected:  how,  indeed,  could  such  a  suspicion  enter 
our  fancies  ?),  he  not  only  rejected  Sir  Dogberry's 
request  that  he  would  try  yet  a  little  longer,  but  de- 
clared to  him  his  belief,  that  both  my  friend  and  myself 
were  as  good  subjects,  for  aught  he  could  discover  to 
the  contrary,  as  any  in  His  Majesty's  dominions.  He 
had  repeatedly  hid  himself,  he  said,  for  hours  together, 
behind  a  bank  at  the  seaside  (our  favourite  seat),  and 
overheard  our  conversation.  At  first  he  fancied  that 
we  were  aware  of  our  danger;  for  he  often  heard  me 
talk  of  one  Spy  Nozy,  which  he  was  inclined  to  interpret 
of  himself,  and  of  a  remarkable  feature  belonging  to 
him ;  but  he  was  speedily  convinced  that  it  was  a  man 
who  had  made  a  book,  and  lived  long  ago.  Our  talk 
ran  most  upon  books,  and  we  were  perpetually  desiring 
each  other  to  look  at  this,  and  to  listen  to  that ;  but  he 
could  not  catch  a  word  about  politics.  Once  he  had 
joined  me  on  the  road  (this  occurred  as  I  was  returning 
home  alone  from  my  friend's  house,  which  was  about 
three  miles  from  my  own  cottage) ;  and  passing  himself 
off  as  a  traveller,  he  had  entered  into  conversation  with 
me,  and  talked,  of  purpose,  in  a  democrat  way,  in  order 
to  draw  me  out.  The  result,  it  appears,  not  only  con- 
vinced him  that  I  was  no  friend  of  Jacobinism,  but  (he 
added)  I  had  '  plainly  made  it  out  to  be  such  a  silly  as 
well  as  wicked  thing,  that  he  felt  ashamed,  though  he 
had  only  put  it  on.'  " 

This  whole  matter  has  sometimes  been  scoffingly  dis- 
missed as  nonsense,  and    Wordsworth  later  in  life  tried 


1797]      WORDSWORTH  VISITS  THELWALL       327 

to  give  the  impression  that  there  was  nothing  in  it. 
There  is  confirmation  of  the  story,  however,  from  an 
independent  source  in  Eliza  Meteyard's  statement 
(p.  78  of  "  A  Group  of  Englishmen  ") :  "  Sir  Philip  Hale, 
of  Cannington  [a  village  between  Nether  Stowey  and 
Bridgwater],  gave  notice  to  the  Government  that  some 
very  suspicious  persons  had  congregated  in  their  neigh- 
bourhood. A  spy  was  therefore  sent  down,  and  his 
report  was  that  Coleridge  might  be  harmless,  but  that 
Wordsworth  was  suspicious." 

Wordsworth,  in  the  Fenwick  note  to  "  Anecdote  for 
Fathers,"  after  referring  rather  apologetically  to  his  ac- 
quaintance with  Thelwall,  says:  "  The  visit  of  this  man 
to  Coleridge  was,  as  I  believe  Coleridge  has  related,  the 
occasion  of  a  spy  being  sent  by  Government  to  watch 
our  proceedings,  which  were,  I  can  say  with  truth,  such 
as  the  world  at  large  would  have  thought  ludicrously 
harmless."  He  gave  to  the  composition  of  this  poem 
the  date  1798,  and  told  Miss  Fenwick 

"  the  name  of  Liswyn  Farm  was  taken  from  a  beauti- 
ful spot  on  the  Wye,*  where  Mr.  Coleridge,  my  sister, 
and  I,  had  been  visiting  the  famous  John  Thelwall,  who 
had  taken  refuge  from  politics,  after  a  trial  for  high 
treason,  with  a  view  to  bring  up  his  family  by  the 
profits  of  agriculture,  which  proved  as  unfortunate  a 
speculation  as  that  he  had  fled  from.  Coleridge  and 
he  had  both  been  public  lecturers ;  Coleridge  mingling 
with  his  politics  Theology,  from  which  the  other  elocu- 
tionist abstained,  unless  it  was  for  the  sake  of  a  sneer. 
This  quondam  community  of  public  employment  in- 
duced Thelwall  to  visit  Coleridge  at  Nether  Stowey, 
where  he  fell  in  my  way.  He  really  was  a  man  of 
extraordinary  talent,  an  affectionate  husband,  and  a 
good  father.  Though  brought  up  in  the  city,  on  a 
tailor's  board,  he  was  truly  sensible  of  the  beauty  of 
natural  objects." 

It  is  likely  that  Wordsworth's  attitude  toward 
Thelwall  in  1797  was  by  no  means  so  detached  and 
superior  as  he  wished  to  make  it  appear  when  he  dictated 

*  Apparently  he  had  forgotten  that  Thelwall's  farm  was  not  on  tin 
Wye,  but  near  Brecon,  in  Wales,  a  day's  walk  from  the  Wye. 


328  COLERIDGE  [chap,  xiii 

this  note.  Coleridge,  writing  to  a  friend,  says:*  "  John 
Thelwall  is  a  very  warm-hearted,  honest  man;  and 
disagreeing  as  we  do,  on  almost  every  point  of  religion, 
of  morals,  of  politics,  and  philosophy,  we  like  each  other 
uncommonly  well.  He  is  a  great  favourite  with  Sara." 
A  letter  from  Coleridge  to  Cottle, f  undated,  but 
evidently  written  in  the  spring  or  early  summer  of  1798, 
shows  in  the  following  passage  that  the  distrust  of  Words- 
worth continued  throughout  the  entire  time  of  his  resi- 
dence in  Somersetshire,  and  that  Mrs.  St.  Albyn  did 
not  relent : 

"  Wordsworth  has  been  caballed  against  so  long  and 
so  loudly  that  he  has  found  it  impossible  to  prevail  on 
the  tenant  of  the  Allfoxden  estate,  to  let  him  keep  the 
house,  after  their  first  agreement  is  expired,  so  he  must 
quit  it  at  Midsummer;  whether  we  shall  be  able  to 
procure  him  a  house  and  furniture  near  Stowey,  we 
know  not,  and  yet  we  must :  for  the  hills,  and  the  woods, 
and  the  streams,  and  the  sea,  and  the  shores,  would 
break  forth  into  reproaches  against  us,  if  we  did  not 
strain  every  nerve,  to  keep  their  Poet  among  them. 
Without  joking,  and  in  serious  sadness,  Poole  and  I 
cannot  endure  to  think  of  losing  him. "J 

Cottle  treats  us  to  an  anecdote  §  which  from  its  flavour 
evidently  passed  through  the  hands  of  Coleridge:  "  The 
wiseacres  of  the  village  had,  it  seems,  made  Mr.  W. 
the  subject  of  their  serious  conversation.  One  said 
that  '  he  had  seen  him  wander  about  by  night,  and  look 

*  Cottle's  "  Early  Recollections,"  I.  254.  f  Ibid.,  313. 

X  Knight  makes  the  statement  ("  Life  of  Wordsworth,"  I.  146)  that  the 
poet  wroteon  the  margin  of  a  memoir  of  himself,  compiled  by  Barron  Field, 
and  never  printed,  opposite  a  statement  that  his  removal  from  Alfoxden 
was  occasioned  by  "  caballing  long  and  loud  "  :  "A  mistake.  Not  the 
occasion  of  my  removal.  Annoyances  I  had  none.  The  facts  mentioned 
by  Coleridge  of  a  spy,  etc.,  came  not  to  my  knowledge  till  I  had  left  the 
neighbourhood.  I  was  not  refused  a  continuance.  I  never  applied  for 
one."  I  have  not  seen  the  memoir  to  which  Knight  here  refers.  Cer- 
tainly Wordsworth's  recollection  was  at  fault,  as  the  letters  and  extracts 
given  above  from  diaries  in  Mrs.  Sandford's  "  Thomas  Poole  and  his 
Friends  "  show,  not  to  mention  the  testimony  of  Cottle,  Coleridge,  and 
Southey,  and  the  manuscript  of  the  draft  of  Poole's  letter  to  Mrs.  St. 
Albyn,  which  I  have  seen. 

§  "  Early  Recollections,"  I.  319. 


1797]  A  SOMERSET  COMEDY  320 

rather  strangely  at  the  moon  !  and  then  he  roamed  over 
the  hills,  like  a  partridge.'  Another  said,  '  he  had 
heard  him  mutter,  as  he  walked,  in  some  outlandish 
brogue,  that  nobody  could  understand  !'  "  But  here 
I  am  afraid  the  amiable  Cottle  becomes  too  garrulous 
to  be  quoted  further.  True  or  not,  however,  his  account 
of  how  he  and  the  poets  tried  to  unharness  a  horse  is 
worth  repeating  for  two  reasons :  it  is  no  exaggeration 
of  their  ignorance  of  worldly  ways,  and  it  shows  how 
eager  the  author  of  "  Alfred,  an  Epic  Poem  in  Twenty- 
four  Books,"  was  to  associate  his  name  with  the  authors 
of  the  "  Ancient  Mariner  "  and  "  The  Excursion  ": 

"  I  removed  the  harness  without  difficulty,  but,  after 
many  strenuous  attempts,  I  could  not  get  off  the  collar. 
In  despair,  I  called  for  assistance,  when  aid  soon  drew 
near.  Mr.  W.  first  brought  his  ingenuity  into  exercise, 
but,  after  several  unsuccessful  efforts,  he  relinquished 
the  achievement,  as  altogether  impracticable.  Mr.  Cole- 
ridge now  tried  his  hand,  but  showed  no  more  grooming 
skill  than  his  predecessors ;  for  after  twisting  the  poor 
horse's  neck,  almost  to  strangulation,  and  to  the  great 
danger  of  his  eyes,  he  gave  up  the  useless  task,  pro- 
nouncing that  '  the  horse's  head  must  have  grown  (gout 
or  dropsy  !)  since  the  collar  was  put  on  !  for,'  he  said, 
'  it  was  a  downright  impossibility  for  such  a  huge  Os 
Frontis  to  pass  through  so  narrow  a  collar  !'  Just  at 
this  instant  the  servant  girl  came  near,  and  understand- 
ing the  cause  of  our  consternation,  '  La,  Master,'  said 
she,  '  you  do  not  go  about  the  work  in  the  right  way. 
You  should  do  like  this,'  when,  turning  the  collar  com- 
pletely upside  down,  she  slipped  it  off  in  a  moment,  to 
our  great  humiliation  and  wonderment ;  each  satisfied, 
afresh,  that  there  were  heights  of  knowledge  in  the 
world  to  which  he  had  not  attained." 


CHAPTER   XIV 

THREE  PERSONS  AND  ONE  SOUL 

Coleridge  was  immensely  benefited  in  spirits  by  Words- 
worth's companionship,  though  he  wrote  to  Cottle  that 
in  spite  of  his  friend's  conversation  he  was  depressed, 
for  he  saw  no  way  of  earning  Bread  and  Cheese.  But  he 
had  a  marvellous  power  of  forgetting  care,  and  several 
of  his  noble  poems  were  conceived  and  partly  executed 
in  the  next  few  months  after  Wordsworth  came  to 
Alfoxden.  The  bracing  effect  of  Wordsworth's  society 
is  seen,  too,  in  the  consecutive  toil  which  Coleridge 
bestowed  upon  his  "  Osorio,"  which  probably  represents 
more  hard  work  than  anything  else  he  ever  wrote. 
Sheridan  had  asked  him  to  write  a  tragedy.  The 
knowledge  that  Wordsworth  was  writing  one  encouraged 
him.  Such  progress  was  made  that  by  September  he 
had  reached  the  middle  of  the  fifth  act,*  and  a  month 
later  it  was  finished  and  sent  to  the  Drury  Lane  Theatre. 
It  was  rejected.  In  1813,  in  a  revised  form  and  with 
a  new  title,"  Remorse,"  it  was  successfully  performed; 
and  had  a  long  run  in  London,  besides  being  acted 
in  the  provinces. 

Wordsworth  was  not  much  later  than  Coleridge  in 
finishing  his  tragedy.     The  latter  wrote  to  Cottle: 

*  "  September  13,  1797. — Coleridge  is  gone  over  to  Bowles  with  his 
Tragedy,  which  he  has  finished  to  the  middle  of  the  5th  Act.  He  set  off 
a  week  ago." — A  fragment  of  a  letter  from  Wordsworth  printed  by  Cottle, 
"  Reminiscences,"  p.  133.  Cottle  also  prints,  without  date,  a  letter  from 
Coleridge  to  himself,  in  which  the  poet  says:  "  My  Tragedy  employed  and 
strained  all  my  thoughts  and  faculties  for  six  or  seven  months  ;  Words- 
worth consumed  far  more  time,  and  far  more  thought,  and  far  more 
genius  " — i.e.,  on  "  The  Borderers."  See  Cottle's  "  Reminiscences." 
p.  176. 

33Q 


i797]        "THE  BORDERERS"  REJECTED  331 

"  I  have  procured  for  Wordsworth's  tragedy  an  intro- 
duction to  Harris,  the  manager  of  Covent  Garden,  who 
has  promised  to  read  it  attentively  and  to  give  his 
answer  immediately;  and  if  he  accepts  it,  to  put  it  in 
preparation  without  an  hour's  delay."* 

And  on  November  20  Dorothy  Wordsworth  writes: 

"  William's  play  is  finished,  and  sent  to  the  managers 
of  the  Covent  Garden  Theatre.  We  have  not  the 
faintest  expectation  that  it  will  be  accepted." 

But  undoubtedly  they  had  some  hopes,  for  they  went 
to  London,  about  the  end  of  the  month,  and  stayed  three 
weeks.  Bishop  Wordsworth  quotes  from  a  letter  she 
wrote  at  Bristol,f  on  the  return  journey,  December  21  : 

"We  have  been  in  London:  our  business  was  the 
play;  and  the  play  is  rejected.  It  was  sent  to  one  of 
the  principal  actors  at  Covent  Garden,  who  expressed 
great  approbation,  and  advised  William  strongly  to  go 
to  London  to  make  certain  alterations." 

The  Bishop  adds  that  the  same  letter  expresses  great 
sorrow  and  disappointment  because  Coleridge's  play 
also  was  rejected.  Wordsworth  took  his  defeat  philo- 
sophically. It  stimulated  him  to  greater  exertions. 
He  wrote  in  fine  spirits  to  James  Tobin,  a  brother  of  the 
dramatist,  John  Tobin :  J  "  I  am  perfectly  easy  about 
the  theatre;  if  I  had  no  other  means  of  employing 
myself,  Mr.  Lewis's  success  would  have  thrown  me  into 
despair."  This  refers  to  M.  G.  Lewis's  flashy  tragedy, 
"  The  Castle  Spectre,"  which  was  having  a  profitable 
run  in  London  .§ 

11  There  is  little  need,"  he  continues,  "  to  advise  me 
against  publishing;  it  is  a  thing  which  I  dread  as  much 
as  death  itself.  This  may  serve  as  an  example  of  the 
figure  by  rhetoricians  called  hyperbole,  but  privacy  and 
quiet  are  my  delight.  No  doubt  you  have  heard  of  the 
munificence  of  the  Wedgwoods  towards  Coleridge.  I 
hope  the  fruit  will  be  good  as  the  seed  is  noble.  We 
leave  Alfoxden  at  Midsummer.     The  house  is  let   .  .   . 

*   "  Reminiscences,"  p.  143.  t  "  Memoirs,"  I.  115. 

I  "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,"  I.  114.      §  See  p.  348,  note. 


332     THREE  PERSONS  AND  ONE  SOUL    [chap.xiv 

so  our  departure  is  decided.  What  may  be  our  destina- 
tion I  cannot  say.  .  .  .  We  have  no  particular  reason 
to  be  attached  to  the  neighbourhood  of  Stowey,  but 
the  society  of  Coleridge  and  the  friendship  of  Poole." 

He  laughingly  mentions  having  written  1,300  lines 
of  a  poem  in  which  he  has  contrived  to  convey  most 
of  the  knowledge  of  which  he  is  possessed,  his  object 
being  "  to  give  pictures  of  Nature,  Man,  and  Society." 
He  says  that  he  has  carved  out  work  for  at  least  a  year 
and  a  half,  and  refers  to  essays  "  which  must  be  written 
with  eloquence,  or  not  at  all."  This  remark  doubtless 
has  some  connection  with  his  statement  to  Miss  Fenwick, 
that  while  composing  "  The  Borderers  "  he  wrote  "  a 
short  essay,  illustrative  of  that  constitution  and  those 
tendencies  of  human  nature  which  make  the  apparently 
motiveless  actions  of  bad  men  intelligible  to  careful 
observers."  It  is  not  known  what  became  of  this 
essay;  and  the  project  mentioned  in  the  letter  to  Tobin 
was  evidently  not  carried  out.  "  My  eloquence," 
Wordsworth  says,  "  modestly  speaking,  will  all  be 
carried  off,  at  least  for  some  time,  into  my  poem." 
He  asks  Tobin  to  collect  books  of  travels  for  him,  which 
are  indispensable  for  his  present  labours,  and  he  wishes 
to  see  "  Mrs.  Godwyn's  Life."  In  Miss  Wordsworth's 
Journal  for  April  14,  we  learn  that  "  Mary  Wollstone- 
craft's  life,  etc.,  came." 

In  1836  WTordsworth  affixed  the  date  1797  to  "  The 
Reverie  of  Poor  Susan."  A  few  years  later  he  told  Miss 
Fenwick  that  he  wrote  it  in  1801  or  1802.  It  was,  how- 
ever, printed  in  1800.  Wordsworth  often  made  mis- 
takes of  this  kind,  but  we  can  generally  rely  with  per- 
fect confidence  upon  his  recollection  of  the  moods  in 
which  he  composed  his  poems.  He  told  Miss  Fenwick: 
"  This  arose  out  of  my  observations  of  the  affecting 
music  of  these  birds,  hanging  this  way  in  the  London 
streets  during  the  freshness  and  stillness  of  the  spring 
morning."* 

*  Knight  is  evidently  mistaken  in  thinking  that  "  the  poem  was  written 
during  the  short  visit  which  Wordsworth  and  his  sister  paid  to  their 
brother  Richard  in  London  in  1797,  when  he  tried    to  get   his  tragedy 


i797]  COMMUNION  OF  SPIRIT  333 

The  visit  to  London,  after  so  many  months  of  quiet 
country  life,  acted  as  a  stimulus  to  Wordsworth's  pro- 
ductive powers.  He  returned  to  Alfoxden  with  a  quick- 
ened appreciation  of  nature,  and  he  realized  that  not 
even  the  mighty  city  held  a  man  comparable  in  genius, 
attainments,  and  charm,  to  their  neighbour  and  friend 
at  Nether  Stowey.  Coleridge's  magnetism  extends 
even  to  those  who  endeavour  to  fasten  their  attention 
upon  Wordsworth.  Whenever  the  two  are  together,  it 
is  Coleridge  who  catches  the  eye  and  enthrals  the  ear. 
But  he  comes  and  goes,  his  intellectual  fire  darts  now 
here  and  now  there,  his  genius  varies  like  the  colour  of 
a  star,  while  Wordsworth,  by  slow  but  constant  motion, 
rises  in  a  calculable  orbit  and  with  a  steady  light.  When 
Wordsworth  lived  at  Alfoxden,  they  were  in  each  other's 
houses  almost  every  day.  Their  communion  of  spirit 
was  close,  and  the  result  was  a  great  quickening  of  their 
poetic  powers.  But  the  new  life  was  more  immediately 
evident  in  Coleridge.  During  these  few  months  he  com- 
posed most  of  his  best  work—"  This  Lime-Tree  Bower 
my  Prison,"  "  The  Rime  of  the  Ancient  Mariner,"  the 
first  part  of  "  Christabel,"  "  France:  an  Ode,"  "  Frost 
at  Midnight,"  "  Fears  in  Solitude,"  "  The  Nightingale: 
a  Conversation  Poem,"  and  "  Kubla  Khan." 

The  story  of  how  he  wrote  the  "  Ancient  Mariner  " 
illustrates  the  fact  that,  though  they  could  together  plan 
a  work,  it  would  in  the  end  take  form  and  spirit  from 
an  individual  mind.  On  November  13,  1797,*  Cole- 
ridge, with  Wordsworth  and  his  sister,  started  from 
Alfoxden  about  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  intending 
to  walk  to  Lynton  and  the  Valley  of  Stones,  on  the 
North    Devon    coast,   about    thirty-rive   miles    distant. 


'  The  Borderers,'  brought  on  the  stage."  Indeed,  it  seems  to  me  more 
than  unlikely  that  they  stayed  with  their  brother,  whom  they  rarely 
mention.  He  was  at  this  time  a  bachelor,  and  lived  at  Staple  Inn.  And 
if  "  The  Reverie  of  Poor  Susan  "  were  really  composed  before  the  publica- 
tion of  "  Lyrical  Ballads,"  one  would  suppose  it  would  have  been  included 
in  that  volume. 

*  In  the  Fenwick  note  to  "  We  are  Seven,"  Wordsworth  mistakenly 
says  "  in  the  spring  of  the  year  1798,"  and  he  is  also  in  error  in  saying  the 
"  New  Monthly  Magazine,"  which  was  not  founded  till  years  afterward. 


334     THREE  PERSONS  AND  ONE  SOUL    [chap,  xiv 

With  their  small  supply  of  money,  it  seemed  a  rash 
expenditure,  but  they  light-heartedly  put  care  aside  by 
resolving  to  pay  the  expenses  of  the  trip  from  the  pro- 
ceeds of  a  poem  to  be  written  for  The  Monthly  Magazine. 
Thus  relieved  in  mind,  they  tramped  gaily  over  the 
Quantock  Hills  through  the  dark  autumn  evening,  and 
spent  the  first  night  at  the  village  of  Watchet,  on  the 
Bristol  Channel,  planning  the  "  Ancient  Mariner  "  as 
they  went.  Coleridge  invented  most  of  the  story,  which 
he  said  was  suggested  to  him  by  a  dream  of  his  friend 
Mr.  Cruikshank,  a  resident  of  the  Stowey  neighbour- 
hood. Wordsworth  contributed  the  idea  of  poetic  jus- 
tice for  the  crime  of  killing  an  albatross.  He  had  just 
been  reading  Shelvocke's  "  Voyages,"  where  he  had  seen 
a  description  of  this  bird.  He  also  suggested  the  grue- 
some incident  of  the  navigation  of  the  ship  by  the  dead 
men.  The  three  worked  joyously  together  at  the  poem 
that  night,  Wordsworth  contributing  two  or  three  com- 
plete lines.  But  the  undertaking  proved  more  con- 
genial to  Coleridge,  and  the  poem  is  his.  The  trio  com- 
pleted their  excursion,  which  took  several  days  and 
furnished  many  delightful  and  droll  recollections.  Cole- 
ridge worked  at  the  poem  until  it  was  finished,  in  March, 
on  the  23rd  of  which  month  Dorothy  wrote  in  her 
Journal:  "  Coleridge  dined  with  us.  He  brought  his 
ballad  finished."  But  it  was  the  night- wind  off  salt 
water  as  he  went,  "  one  of  three,"  down  into  Watchet 
that  first  brought  to  him  the  Mariner's  hail. 

That  mysterious  poem,  "  Christabel,"  was  begun  in 
1797,  and,  as  J.  Dykes  Campbell  has  remarked,*  it 
contains  several  observations  of  nature  of  which  the 
originals  are  to  be  found  in  Dorothy's  Journal  from 
January  21  to  March  25,  1798.  She  was  gathering 
honey  that  spring  for  two  "  singing  masons  building 
roofs  of  gold." 

The  two  poets  were  associated  in  another  literary 
venture  which  was  not  so  successful  as  the  "  Ancient 
Mariner."  It  was  to  have  been  a  prose  rhapsody,  "  The 
Wanderings  of  Cain,"  in  three  cantos,  of  which  one,  the 

*  "  Life  of  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,"  p.  80. 


1798]  "  THE  WANDERINGS  OF  CAIN  "  335 

second,  has  been  preserved  and  printed  among  Cole- 
ridge's poems.  In  the  tone  of  reverent  tenderness 
with  which  he  almost  always  mentions  his  friend, 
he  thus,  after  thirty  years,  tells  the  story  of  this 
attempt : 

"  The  work  was  to  have  been  written  in  concert  with 
another  whose  name  is  too  venerable  within  the  pre- 
cincts of  genius  to  be  unnecessarily  brought  into  con- 
nection with  such  a  trifle,  and  who  was  then  residing 
at  a  small  distance  from  Nether  Stowey.  The  title  and 
subject  were  suggested  by  myself,  who  likewise  drew 
out  the  scheme  and  the  contents  for  each  of  the  three 
books  or  cantos,  of  which  the  work  was  to  consist,  and 
which,  the  reader  is  to  be  informed,  was  to  have  been 
finished  in  one  night  !  My  partner  undertook  the  first 
canto :  I  the  second  :  and  whichever  had  done  first  was 
to  set  about  the  third.  Almost  thirty  years  have  passed 
by  ;  yet  at  this  moment  I  cannot  without  something  more 
than  a  smile  moot  the  question  which  of  the  two  things 
was  the  more  impracticable,  for  a  mind  so  eminently 
original  to  compose  another  man's  thoughts  and  fancies, 
or  for  a  taste  so  austerely  pure  and  simple  to  imitate  the 
Death  of  Abel  ?  Methinks  I  see  his  grand  and  noble 
countenance  as  at  the  moment  when,  having  despatched 
my  own  portion  of  the  task  at  full  finger-speed,  I  has- 
tened to  him  with  my  manuscript — that  look  of  humorous 
despondency  fixed  on  his  almost  blank  sheet  of  paper, 
and  then  its  silent  mock-piteous  admission  of  failure 
struggling  with  the  sense  of  the  exceeding  ridiculousness 
of  the  whole  scheme — which  broke  up  in  a  laugh :  and 
the  Ancient  Mariner  was  written  instead." 

Coleridge  attempted  the  same  subject  in  verse,  and 
kept  the  introductory  stanza,  "  which  had  been  com- 
mitted to  writing  for  the  purpose  of  procuring  a  friend's 
judgment  on  the  metre."  It  is  interesting  to  observe 
that  the  rhythm  and  the  general  musical  effect  are 
similar  to  those  of  Wordsworth's  ballads,  "  The  Last 
of  the  Flock,"  "  The  Idiot  Boy,"  and  "  Peter  Bell," 
composed  about  the  same  time.  The  same  cadences, 
the  same  loose  rhyming  scheme,  and  the  same  length 
of  line,  were  used  for  a  similar  description  of  innocent 
boyhood  in  a  wilderness,  by  the  mediaeval  German  poet 


336     THREE  PERSONS  AND  ONE  SOUL    [chap,  xiv 

Wolfram  von   Eschenbach,  in   his  "  Parzeval."     Cole- 
ridge's stanza  is  as  follows  : 

Encinctured  with  a  twine  of  leaves, 

That  leafy  twine  his  only  dress  ! 

A  lovely  Boy  was  plucking  fruits, 

By  moonlight,  in  a  wilderness. 

The  moon  was  bright,  the  air  was  free, 

And  fruits  and  flowers  together  grew 

On  many  a  shrub  and  many  a  tree : 

And  all  put  on  a  gentle  hue, 

Hanging  in  the  shadowy  air 

Like  a  picture  rich  and  rare. 

It  was  a  climate  where,  they  say 

The  night  is  more  belov'd  than  day. 

But  who  that  beauteous  Boy  beguild, 

That  beauteous  Boy  to  linger  here  ? 

Alone,  by  night,  a  little  child, 

In  place  so  silent  and  so  wild — 

Has  he  no  friend,  no  loving  mother  near  ? 

Because  of  Coleridge's  quicker  responsiveness  to  in- 
tellectual impressions,  we  find  in  his  poems  written 
between  November,  1797,  and  the  summer  of  1798,  a 
more  complete  record  of  the  thoughts  that  must  have 
occupied  Wordsworth's  mind  than  the  latter's  own 
poems  of  that  period  reveal.  Wordsworth  gathered  the 
harvest  too,  but  not  so  soon.  We  have  every  reason  to 
distrust  the  testimony  of  strangers,  and  even  his  own 
deprecatory  remarks  in  old  age,  to  the  effect  that  he 
was  not  at  that  time  occupied  with  politics.  He  was 
living  in  close  daily  intercourse  with  the  suffering  mind 
from  whose  anxiety  were  struck  off  "  France:  an  Ode," 
and  "  Fears  in  Solitude,"  in  February  and  April,  1798. 
These  great  poems,  unsurpassed  in  our  language  as  ex- 
pressions of  political  feeling,  show  that  the  love  of 
liberty  still  glowed  as  brightly  as  ever  in  Coleridge's 
breast.  He  still  set  the  cause  of  humanity  above 
insular  pride.  He  still  was  tortured  with  a  sense  of  the 
wrongs  his  country  had  committed.  If  at  the  same 
time  he  realized  that  the  Revolution  in  France  had 
deviated  from  its  original  course,  if  he  turned  heart-sick 
from  a  race  who  "  still  promising  freedom  "  were  "  them- 


1798]  THE  WEDGWOODS  337 

selves  too  sensual  to  be  free,"  there  was  little  comfort 
for  him  in  the  thought  either  of  those  at  home  who 
expected  "  all  change  from  change  of  constituted  power," 
or  of  those  who  doted  on  the  British  Constitution  "  with 
a  mad  idolatry."  To  his  far-seeing  and  humane  mind 
it  was  an  excruciating  dilemma.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
whatever  that  Wordsworth  suffered  like  pangs.  The 
astounding  victories  of  Napoleon,  meanwhile,  were  giving 
to  the  war-fever  in  England  the  aspect  of  exalted  patriot- 
ism. There  was  panic  in  the  air,  to  which  the  mutinies 
of  the  Nore  and  at  Spithead  gave  a  turn  towards  despera- 
tion and  hardness. 

Lloyd  having  left  him  on  account  of  ill-health,  Cole- 
ridge was  almost  penniless  when  winter  came  on. 
During  the  Wordsworths'  visit  to  London,  in  December, 
he  received  an  invitation  to  preach  to  the  Unitarian 
congregation  at  Shrewsbury,  and  was  on  the  point  of 
accepting  a  call  to  be  their  pastor,  when  Josiah  and 
Thomas  Wedgwood,  sons  of  the  great  potter,  offered 
him  an  annuity  of  £150  for  life,  without  conditions,  as 
a  mark  of  their  appreciation  of  his  poetic  and  philo- 
sophic genius.  He  had  scruples  against  preaching  for 
hire,  and  these  generous  and  cultivated  brothers  hoped 
to  save  him  for  the  work  he  was  best  fitted  to  do. 
Josiah  Wedgwood's  letter  of  January  10,  containing 
their  proposal,  is  as  delicately  worded  as  it  is  forcible: 

'  My  brother  and  myself  are  possessed  of  a  consider- 
able  superfluity  of  fortune;  squandering  and  hoarding 
are  equally  distant  from  our  inclinations.  But  we  are 
earnestly  desirous  to  convert  this  superfluity  into  a 
fund  of  beneficence,  and  we  have  now  been  accustomed 
for  some  time,  to  regard  ourselves  rather  as  Trustees 
than  Proprietors."* 

Coleridge  preached  a  few  Sundays  at  Shrewsbury,  but 
withdrew  his  candidature  and  visited  the  Wedgwoods. 
By  February  3  he  had  returned  to  Nether  Stowey,  as 
we  learn  from  an  entry  in  Dorothy  Wordsworth's 
Journal  for  that  date:  "  Walked  with  Coleridge  over 
the  hills."     The  Journal  begins  January  20,  1798,  and 

*   Mrs.  Sandfonl,  "  Thomas  Poole  and  his  Friends,"  p.  257. 
I.  22 


338     THREE  PERSONS  AND  ONE  SOUL   [chap.xiv 

up  to  this  point  is  filled  almost  exclusively  with  minute 
observations  of  nature.  In  the  interval  Nether  Stowey 
seems  to  have  had  little  attraction,  and  is  referred  to 
only  twice.  On  January  25  she  writes,  "  Went  to 
Poole's  after  tea,"  and  on  January  31,  "  Set  forward  to 
Stowey  at  half-past  five."  After  Coleridge's  return 
there  is  almost  daily  mention  of  walks  to  and  from 
Nether  Stowey,  or  wanderings  with  him  in  the  woods 
above  and  around  Alfoxden.  Twice  before  he  came  she 
records  "  an  uninteresting  evening,"  but  never  again. 
There  can  hardly  be  in  all  the  world  a  story  of  more 
perfect  happiness  than  her  pages  tell.  The  day  of  her 
felicity  was  still  in  its  dewy  morning  hours.  She  had 
her  brother  with  her,  contented  and  productive.  They 
saw  and  felt  as  one  creature.  When  Coleridge  was  with 
them  their  union  was  not  disturbed,  but  enlarged  and 
rendered  more  complete.  In  the  poems  which  Words- 
worth wrote  during  the  spring  and  summer  of  1798  he 
was  evidently  trying  not  to  give  too  direct  an  expres- 
v  sion  to  his  own  feelings.  He  was  aiming  at  a  high 
^degree  of  objectivity.  He  chose  ballad  measures,  and 
chiefly  subjects  that  he  thought  appropriate  to  the  im- 
personal spirit  of  the  ballad,  though  it  is  to  be  observed 
that,  within  the  limit  thus  set  by  his  artistic  taste  at 
the  moment,  his  choice  fell  upon  characters  in  humble 
life,  and  frequently  upon  instances  of  social  injustice. 
How  different  are  his  subjects  from  those  of  Scott,  for 
example  ! 

In  the  poems  of  1 798  it  is  easy  to  distinguish  from  one 
another  the  peculiar  qualities  and  purposes  which  enter 
into  the  composition  of  nearly  all  Wordsworth's  later 
works.  We  see  here  the  different  strands  of  the  cord 
before  they  have  been  twisted  together.  One  of  these  is 
an  intimate  knowledge  of  nature.  His  use  of  this  know- 
ledge is  so  abundant  and  varied,  so  ready  and  sure,  that 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  behind  it  lay  a  long  period 
of  happy  familiarity.  This  background  is  disclosed  in  his 
sister's  Journal.  On  reading  those  charming  pages  one 
feels  that  one  has  come  upon  a  hidden  rill  of  pure  water, 
not  at  its  very  source,  however,  for  it  flows  already  with 


i7q8]  DOROTHY'S  NATURE  NOTES  339 

a  full  current,  as  if  accustomed  to  motion.  When  did 
Dorothy  Wordsworth  acquire  this  habit  of  exactly 
noting  what  she  saw  out  of  doors  ?  Surely,  if  she  had 
been  so  interested  in  natural  objects  three  years  before, 
she  would  have  expressed  herself  to  Jane  Pollard  on 
this  as  on  so  many  other  subjects.  There  are  pre- 
liminary touches  in  her  letters  from  Racedown,  and  it 
is  quite  likely  she  began  writing  some  sort  of  nature 
notes  there,  but  before  she  began  to  live  with  her 
brother  this  strain  is  rarely  discoverable  in  her  writings, 
and  then  chiefly  when  recalling  his  one  visit  to  Forncett 
just  before  his  graduation,  or  when  referring  to  his 
poetry.  Her  own  instincts  appear  to  have  been  originally 
domestic  and  social.  Notwithstanding  his  exquisite 
acknowledgment  in  the  well-known  line  of  "  The  Spar- 
row's Nest," 

She  gave  me  eves,  she  gave  me  ears, 

it  was  he,  or  he  and  Coleridge  together,  who  taught  her 
to  "  see  into  the  life  of  things."  What  she  gave  him  is 
more  fully  told  in  the  complete  sentence  which  concludes 
that  poem : 

She  gave  me  eyes,  she  gave  me  ears; 

And  humble  cares  and  delicate  fears; 

A  heart,  the  fountain  of  sweet  tears; 

And  love,  and  thought,  and  joy. 

After  his  long  years  of  roving,  unrestrained  by  the 
sweet  bondage  of  domestic  ties,  her  gentleness  and 
womanly  scruples,  her  fine  discrimination  and  intensity 
of  feeling,  were  a  revelation  to  him.  And  in  return  he 
opened  to  her  a  new  world,  the  world  of  natural  objects. 
"  An  Evening  Walk  "  and  "  Descriptive  Sketches  " 
prove  that  he  had  obtained  access  to  this  realm  without 
her  assistance,  and  while  she  was  still  almost  a  stranger 
to  his  intellectual  life.  We  may  therefore  regard  the 
wonderful  pages  of  her  Journal  as  a  record  of  remarks 
which  were  at  least  as  certainly  his  as  her  own.  Their 
literary  form,  which  it  is  impossible  to  praise  too  highly, 
is,  however,  hers.  She  seldom  indulges  in  a  reflection, 
she  seldom  elaborates.  Facts  are  all  that  concern  her; 
yet,   though   she   states   facts    very   simply,   there   are 


340     THREE  PERSONS  AND  ONE  SOUL   [chap,  xiv 

always  a  fine  glow  of  tenderness  and  some  heightening 
touch,  which  spiritualize  the  details.  Take,  for  example, 
the  opening  sentences  of  the  first  entry: 

"  Alfoxden,  January  20th,  1798. — The  green  paths 
down  the  hill-sides  are  channels  for  streams.  The 
young  wheat  is  streaked  by  silver  lines  of  water  running 
between  the  ridges,  the  sheep  are  gathered  together  on 
the  slopes.  After  the  wet  dark  days,  the  country  seems 
more  populous.  It  peoples  itself  in  the  sunbeams.  The 
garden,  mimic  of  spring,  is  gay  with  flowers." 

Three  days  later  she  notes  :  "  The  sound  of  the  sea  dis- 
tinctly heard  on  the  tops  of  the  hills,  which  we  could 
never  hear  in  summer.  We  attribute  this  partly  to  the 
bareness  of  the  trees,  but  chiefly  to  the  absence  of  the 
singing  of  birds,  the  hum  of  insects,  that  noiseless  noise 
which  lives  in  the  summer  air.  The  villages  marked  out 
by  beautiful  beds  of  smoke." 

Every  day  she  and  her  brother  walked  together,  some- 
times in  the  wood  that  separated  Alfoxden  House  from 
the  village  of  Holford,  sometimes  on  the  hills  above, 
whence  they  could  see  the  turbid  waters  of  the  Bristol 
Channel  and  the  Welsh  coast  beyond.  They  dipped 
into  the  coombes,  or  little  valleys  sloping  to  the  sea, 
where  autumn  lingered  long  and  spring  came  early.  A 
characteristic  entry  is  that  of  January  26: 

"Walked  upon  the  hill-tops;  followed  the  sheep- 
tracks  till  we  overlooked  the  larger  coombe.  Sat  in  the 
sunshine.  The  distant  sheep-bells,  the  sound  of  the 
stream ;  the  woodman  winding  along  the  half-marked 
road  with  his  laden  pony;  locks  of  wool  still  spangled 
with  the  dewdrops ;  the  blue-grey  sea,  shaded  with 
immense  masses  of  cloud,  not  streaked ;  the  sheep 
glittering  in  the  sunshine.  Returned  through  the  wood. 
The  trees  skirting  the  wood,  being  exposed  more  directly 
to  the  action  of  the  sea-breeze,  stripped  of  the  network 
of  their  upper  boughs,  which  are  stiff  and  erect,  like 
black  skeletons ;  the  ground  strewed  with  the  red  berries 
of  the  holly.  Set  forward  before  two  o'clock.  Returned 
a  little  after  four." 

She  notes  "  the  iv}r  twisting  round  the  oaks  like 
bristled  serpents,"  and  how  at  night  "  the  shadows  of 


1798]  THE  ALFOXDEN  JOURNAL  341 

the  oaks  blackened,  and  their  lines  became  more  strongly 
marked  "  when  "  the  moon  burst  through  the  invisible 
veil  which  enveloped  her." 

There  are  but  few  touches  due  to  sentiment  or  fancy. 
The  actual  is  sufficiently  wonderful.  It  is  as  if  she  were 
seeing  this  infinite  world  for  the  first  time.  She  was 
very  happy,  in  high  health  and  spirits.  The  ordinary 
sights  and  sounds  of  country  life  were  so  exhilarating 
that  to  record  them  was  a  joyous  solemnity,  and  she 
did  not  care  to  speculate  upon  their  significance.  To 
treat  them  as  symbols  would  have  seemed  a  strangely 
perverse  and  impertinent  course.  Sometimes,  with  a 
faculty  rarely  found  except  in  children  and  painters, 
she  sees  things  as  they  appear  to  be,  and  not  as  she 
knows  they  really  are.  For  example,  one  evening  she 
notes  that  the  sea  was  "  big  and  white,  swelled  to  the 
very  shores,  but  round  and  high  in  the  middle."  Could 
words  possibly  produce  a  more  detailed  and  yet  unified 
picture  than  this  on  February  24  ?— 

"  Went  to  the  hill-top.  Sat  a  considerable  time  over- 
looking the  country  towards  the  sea.  The  air  blew 
pleasantly  round  us.  The  landscape  mildly  interesting. 
The  Welsh  hills  capped  by  a  huge  range  of  tumultuous 
white  clouds.  The  sea,  spotted  with  white,  of  a  bluish- 
grey  in  general,  and  streaked  with  darker  lines.  The 
near  shores  clear;  scattered  farm-houses,  half  concealed 
by  green  mossy  orchards,  fresh  straw  lying  at  the  doors; 
hay-stacks  in  the  fields.  Brown  fallows,  the  springing 
wheat,  like  a  shade  of  green  over  the  brown  earth,  and 
the  choice  meadow  plots,  full  of  sheep  and  lambs,  of  a 
soft  and  vivid  green;  a  few  wreaths  of  blue  smoke, 
spreading  along  the  ground ;  the  oaks  and  beeches  in 
the  hedges  retaining  their  yellow  leaves;  the  distant 
prospect  on  the  land  side,  islanded  with  sunshine ;  the 
sea,  like  a  basin  full  to  the  margin;  the  dark  fresh- 
ploughed  fields;  the  turnips  of  a  lively  rough  green 
Returned  through  the  wood." 

One  scarcely  knows  whether  to  admire  more  such  a  dis- 
tinct stroke  as  that  "  lively  rough  green  "  of  the  turnips, 
or  the  general  composition  of  the  picture,  which  is  so 
plainly  a  day  in  late  February  or  early  March.  Again, 
she  mentions  a  prospect  "  curiously  spread  out  for  even 


342     THREE  PERSONS  AND  ONE  SOUL   [chap,  xiv 

minute  inspection,  though  so  extensive  that  the  mind 
is  afraid  to  calculate  its  bounds." 

Their  walks  were  usually  in  the  afternoon  and  even- 
ing, and  they  brought  home  bundles  of  sticks  which 
they  gathered  along  the  way.*  Sometimes  Basil  was 
with  them,  sometimes  Tom  Poole,  and  very  often  Cole- 
ridge. The  latter  was  at  Shrewsbury  preaching  in 
December,  and  till  January  29,  when  he  visited  the 
Wedgwoods.  He  probably  returned  to  Nether  Stowey 
on  February  3,  and  came  at  once  to  Alfoxden.  On  that 
date  he  is  mentioned  for  the  first  time  in  the  Journal. 
"  A  mild  morning,"  Dorothy  writes,  "  the  windows 
open  at  breakfast,  the  redbreasts  singing  in  the  garden. 
Walked  with  Coleridge  over  the  hills."  Less  methodical 
than  even  the  Words  worths,  he  appears  to  have  had  no 
scruple  about  breaking  in  upon  their  work  at  any  time 
of  day  or  night.  So  we  find,  under  date  of  February  4: 
"  W7alked  a  great  part  of  the  way  to  Stowey  with  Cole- 
ridge." February  6:  "  Walked  to  Stowey  over  the 
hills."  And  so  throughout  this  month  and  the  next, 
and  till  April  9,  few  were  the  days  on  which  the  three 
did  not  meet  somewhere.  From  about  April  9  to  18 
Coleridge  was  in  Devonshire,  visiting  his  relatives  at 
Ottery  St.  Mary,  and  on  his  return  the  pleasant  inter- 
course began  again. f 

Most  of  the  entries  are  very  brief.  When  Coleridge 
had  talked  to  his  heart's  content,  there  was  probably 
no  time  left  except  for  the  daily  tasks,  such  as  "  hang- 
ing out  linen."  They  did  not  keep  country  hours — 
never,  at  least,  when  he  was  of  the  party.  Three  suc- 
cessive entries  show  how   the   time  flew — March   25: 

*  Mrs.  Tyson,  of  Rydal,  who  remembered  the  Wordsworths  well,  having 
served  in  the  family  when  she  was  a  girl,  told  me  in  1907  that  the  poet 
in  his  old  age  "  was  always  gathering  sticks,  and  often  had  quite  a  bundle 
of  them  in  his  hands  behind  his  back." 

t  Mr.  Thomas  Hutchinson  has  called  my  attention  to  an  error  in  Pro- 
fessor Knight's  edition  of  the  Journal.  Dorothy  is  there  represented  as 
writing  on  April  13  :  "In  the  evening  went  to  Stowey.  I  staid  with  Mr. 
Coleridge.  Wm.  went  to  Poole's.  Supped  with  Mr.  Coleridge."  Besides 
the  fact  that  she  almost  nowhere  else  writes  of  Coleridge  as  Mr.,  it  is 
beyond  question  that  he  was  not  at  Nether  Stowey  at  that  time.  The 
Mr.  should  be  Mrs. 


1798]  MATERIAL  FOR  POETRY  343 

"  Walked  to  Coleridge's  after  tea.  Arrived  at  home 
at  one  o'clock.  The  night  cloudy  but  not  dark."  26th: 
"  Went  to  meet  Wedgwood  at  Coleridge's  after  dinner. 
Reached  home  at  half-past  twelve,  a  fine  moonlight 
night ;  half-moon."  27th:  "  Dined  at  Poole's.  Arrived 
at  home  a  little  after  twelve,  a  partially  cloudy,  but 
light  night,  very  cold."  On  a  day  of  very  high  wind 
"  Coleridge  came  to  avoid  the  smoke;  stayed  all  night," 
and  they  walked  in  the  wood.  Next  day  she  "  walked 
to  Crookham  [Crewcombe  she  means]  with  Coleridge 
and  Wm.  to  make  the  appeal.  Left  Wm.  there,  and 
parted  with  Coleridge  at  the  top  of  the  hill."  This 
perhaps  refers  to  the  difficulty  with  Mrs.  St.  Albyn 
about  staying  at  Alfoxden.  She  frequently  refers  to 
her  brother's  being  tired  or  ill.  Apparently  the  Cole- 
ridges  stayed  with  them  for  some  days  in  March,  and 
shortly  afterwards  she  mentions  poems  which  her 
brother  was  composing,  among  them  "  The  Thorn," 
"A  Whirl-blast  from  Behind  the  Hill,"  and"  Peter  Bell." 
A  striking  example  of  how  she  and  her  brother  thought 
the  same  thoughts  and  used  the  same  words  is  to  be  found 
by  comparing  his  poem, "  A  Night-Piece,"  with  the  entries 
in  her  Journal  for  January  25  and  31.    She  writes: 

'  The  sky  spread  over  with  one  continuous  cloud, 
whitened  by  the  light  of  the  moon,  which,  though  her 
dim  shape  was  seen,  did  not  throw  forth  so  strong  a 
light  as  to  checquer  the  earth  with  shadows.  At  once 
the  clouds  seemed  to  cleave  asunder,  and  left  her  in  the 
centre  of  a  black-blue  vault.  She  sailed  along,  followed 
by  multitudes  of  stars,  small,  and  bright,  and  sharp. 
Their  brightness  seemed  concentrated  (half-moon)." 
And  again:  "  Set  forward  to  Stowey  at  half-past  five. 
A  violent  storm  in  the  wood ;  sheltered  under  the  hollies. 
When  we  left  home  the  moon  immensely  large,  the  skies 
scattered  over  with  clouds.  These  soon  closed  in,  contract- 
ing the  dimensions  of  the  moon  without  concealing  her." 

The  poem  is  as  follows : 

The  sky  is  overcast 
With  a  continuous  cloud  of  texture  close, 
Heavy  and  wan,  all  whitened  by  the  Moon, 
Which  through  that  vale  is  indistinctly  seen, 


344     THREE  PERSONS  AND  ONE  SOUL   [chap  x  v 

A  dull,  contracted  circle,  yielding  light 

So  feebly  spread,  that  not  a  shadow  falls, 

Chequering  the  ground — from  rock,  plant,  tree,  or  tower. 

At  length  a  pleasant  instantaneous  gleam 

Startles  the  pensive  traveller  while  he  treads 

His  lonesome  path,  with  unobserving  eye 

Bent  earthwards ;  he  looks  up- — the  clouds  are  split 

Asunder, — and  above  his  head  he  sees 

The  clear  Moon,  and  the  glory  of  the  heavens. 

There  in  a  blue-black  vault  she  sails  along, 

Followed  by  multitudes  of  stars,  that,  small 

And  sharp,  and  bright,  along  the  dark  abyss 

Drive  as  she  drives ;  how  fast  they  wheel  away, 

Yet  vanish  not  ! — the  wind  is  in  the  tree, 

But  they  are  silent; — still  they  roll  along 

Immeasurably  distant;  and  the  vault, 

Built  round  by  those  white  clouds,  enormous  clouds, 

Still  deepens  its  unfathomable  depth. 

At  length  the  Vision  closes;  and  the  mind. 

Not  undisturbed  by  the  delight  it  feels, 

Which  slowly  settles  into  peaceful  calm, 

Is  left  to  muse  upon  the  solemn  scene. 

Nearly  fifty  years  later  the  poet  said  of  these  lines: 
"  Composed  on  the  road  between  Nether  Stowey  and 
Alfoxden  extempore.  I  distinctly  recollect  the  very 
moment  when  I  was  struck,  as  described,  '  He  looks  up 
— the  clouds  are  split,  etc'  " 

It  is  quite  likely  that  the  germ  of  an  idea  which  bore 
fruit  in  the  "  Sonnets  on  the  River  Duddon  "  was  im- 
planted in  Wordsworth's  mind  on  an  occasion  to  which 
Dorothy  refers  in  the  following  entry: 

"  April  6th.- — Went  a  part  of  the  way  home  with  Cole- 
ridge. A  pleasant  warm  morning,  but  a  showery  day. 
Walked  a  short  distance  up  the  lesser  Coombe,  with  an 
intention  of  going  to  the  source  of  the  brook,  but  the 
evening  closing  in,  cold  prevented  us.  The  Spring  still 
advancing  very  slowly.  The  horse-chestnuts  budding, 
and  the  hedgerows  beginning  to  look  green,  but  nothing 
fully  expanded." 

Coleridge  somewhere  proposes  the  plan  of  following 
the  course  of  a  stream,  and  recording  its  life  in  a  poem 
or  series  of  poems.     And  there  is  more  than  an  acci- 


1798]  HAZLITT'S  VISIT  345 

dental  resemblance  between  Dorothy's  words  and  the 
Ikies  in  Coleridge's  "  Christabel  ": 

Tis  a  month  before  the  month  of  May, 
And  the  Spring  comes  slowly  up  this  way. 

It  is  in  the  Alfoxden  Journal  that  we  read  the  first  of 
Dorothy  Wordsworth's  many  remarks  on  the  exhaustion 
which  it  cost  her  brother  to  compose  poetry.  On 
April  20  she  writes:  "  Walked  in  the  evening  up  the 
hill  dividing  the  Coombes.  Came  home  the  Crookham 
way,  by  the  thorn  and  the  '  little  muddy  pond.'  Nine 
o'clock  at  our  return.  William  all  the  morning  engaged 
in  wearisome  composition.  The  moon  crescent.  Peter 
Bell  begun." 

On  Wednesday,  May  16,  she  writes:  "  Coleridge, 
William,  and  myself,  set  forward  to  the  Chedder  rocks; 
slept  at  Bridgwater;"  and  under  date  of  Tuesday  the 
22nd  she  writes  :  "  Walked  to  Chedder.  Slept  at  Cross." 
Here  these  precious  jottings  come  to  an  end. 

It  seems  likely  that  after  visiting  the  wonderful  lime- 
stone gorge  at  Cheddar,  they  proceeded,  perhaps  by 
way  of  Wells  and  Bristol,  to  the  valley  of  the  Wye, 
and  made  the  visit  to  Thelwall's  farm  which  is  men- 
tioned in  the  Fenwick  note  to  an  "Anecdote  for  Fathers." 
It  was  about  forty  miles  west  of  the  Wye,  and  beyond 
a  mountain  range. 

In  May  also  probably  occurred  the  visit  of  William 
Hazlitt  to  Nether  Stowey,  to  which  we  owe  a  marvel- 
lously vivid  description  of  Wordsworth  as  he  then  ap- 
peared. We  may  depend  upon  Hazlitt  to  have  set  down 
aught  in  malice  that  occurred  to  him.  He  would  not  be 
inclined  to  change  a  single  feature  by  way  of  flattery. 
We  have,  indeed,  to  be  on  our  guard  with  him,  against 
the  venom  of  his  rancour,  as  when  he  declares  that 
Wordsworth  had  the  free  use  of  Alfoxden,  and  conse- 
quently grew  soft-hearted  towards  Toryism.  Anyone 
who  is  at  all  well  acquainted  with  Hazlitt's  method  of 
suggesting  falsehood  will  know  how  to  value  this  in- 
sinuation. Of  the  close  accuracy  of  his  portraiture 
there   is,   however,   no   reason   to   doubt.     He   was   an 


346     THREE  PERSONS  AND  ONE  SOUL   [chap,  xiv 

almost  unrivalled  master  of  personal  description,  and 
his  account  of  Wordsworth  corresponds  trait  for  trait, 
down  to  the  twitching  lines  of  the  mouth,  with  a  draw- 
ing made  by  W.  Shuter  in  April,  to  which  Dorothy 
referred  in  her  Journal  on  April  26.* 

When  Coleridge  preached  at  Shrewsbury  in  January, 
Hazlitt,  who  was  a  lad  of  nineteen,  walked  ten  miles  to 
hear  him.  The  poet-philosopher-preacher  completed  his 
conquest  during  a  subsequent  visit  at  Hazlitt's  home, 
and  dazzled  the  boy  by  inviting  him  to  visit  Nether 
Stowey  in  the  spring.  Hazlitt's  reminiscences,  which 
he  called  "  My  First  Acquaintance  with  Poets,"  was 
published,  in  substance,  in  181 7,  and  afterwards  ampli- 
fied and  reprinted.  I  quote  from  the  "  Memoirs  of 
William  Hazlitt,"  1867: 

"  I  arrived,"  says  Hazlitt,  "  and  was  well  received. 
...  In  the  afternoon  Coleridge  took  me  over  to  All- 
Foxden,  a  romantic  old  family  mansion  of  the  St. 
Aubins,  where  Wordsworth  lived.  It  was  then  in  the 
possession  of  a  friend  of  the  poet,  who  gave  him  the  free 
use  of  it.  Somehow  that  period  (the  time  just  after  the 
French  Revolution)  was  not  a  time  when  nothing  was 
given  for  nothing.  The  mind  opened,  and  a  softness 
might  be  perceived  coming  over  the  heart  of  individuals, 
beneath  '  the  scales  that  fence  '  our  self-interest.  Words- 
worth himself  was  from  home,  but  his  sister  kept  house, 
and  set  before  us  a  frugal  repast ;  and  we  had  free  access 
to  her  brother's  poems,  the  '  Lyrical  Ballads,'  which 
were  still  in  manuscript  or  in  the  form  of  '  Sibylline 
Leaves.'  I  dipped  into  a  few  of  these  with  great  satis- 
faction, and  with  the  faith  of  a  novice.  I  slept  that 
night  in  an  old  room  with  blue  hangings,  and  covered 
with  the  round-faced  family-portraits  of  the  age  of 
George  I.  and  II.,  and  from  the  wooded  declivity  of  the 
adjoining  park  that  overlooked  my  window,  at  the 
dawn  of  day,  could 

.  .  .  hear  the  loud  stag  speak. 

"  That  morning,  as  soon  as  breakfast  was  over,  we 
strolled  out  into  the  park,  and  seating  ourselves  on  the 
trunk  of  an  old  ash-tree  that  stretched  along  the  ground, 
Coleridge  read  aloud,  with  a  sonorous  and  musical  voice, 
the  ballad  of  '  Betty  Foy.'     I  was  not  critically  or  skep- 

*  See  the  frontispiece. 


1798]       DESCRIPTION  OF  WORDSWORTH  347 

tically  inclined.  I  saw  touches  of  truth  and  nature, 
and  took  the  rest  for  granted.  But  in  the  '  Thorn,'  the 
1  Mad  Mother,'*  and  the  '  Complaint  of  a  Poor  Indian 
Woman,'  I  felt  that  deeper  power  and  pathos  which 
have  been  since  acknowledged, 

In  spite  of  pride,  in  erring  reason's  spite, 

as  the  characteristics  of  this  author;  and  the  sense  of  a 
new  style  and  a  new  spirit  in  poetry  came  over  me.  It 
had  to  me  something  of  the  effect  that  arises  from  the 
turning  up  of  the  fresh  soil,  or  the  first  welcome  breath  of 
Spring, 

\\  hile  yet  the  trembling  year  is  unconfirmed. 

Coleridge  and  myself  walked  back  to  Stowey  that  even- 
ing, and  his  voice  sounded  high 

Of  Providence,  foreknowledge,  will,  and  faith, 
Fix'd  fate,  free-will,  foreknowledge  absolute, 

as  we  passed  through  echoing  grove,  by  fairy  stream  or 
waterfall,  gleaming  in  the  summer  moonlight  !  He  \j 
lamented  that  Wordsworth  was  not  prone  enough  to 
believe  in  the  traditional  superstitions  of  the  place,  and 
that  there  was  a  something  corporeal,  a  matter-of-fact- 
ness,  a  clinging  to  the  palpable,  or  often  to  the  petty, 
in  his  poetry,  in  consequence.  His  genius  was  not  a 
spirit  that  descended  to  him  through  the  air;  it  sprung 
out  of  the  ground  like  a  flower,  or  unfolded  itself  from 
a  green  spray,  on  which  the  goldfinch  sang.  He  said, 
however  (if  I  remember  right),  that  this  objection  must 
be  confined  to  his  descriptive  pieces ;  that  his  philosophic 
poetry  had  a  grand  and  comprehensive  spirit  in  it,  so 
that  his  soul  seemed  to  inhabit  the  universe  like  a  palace, 
and  to  discover  truth  by  intuition,  rather  than  by  deduc- 
tion. The  next  day  Wordsworth  arrived  from  Bristol 
at  Coleridge's  cottage.  I  think  I  see  him  now.  He 
answered  in  some  degree  to  his  friend's  description  of 
him,  but  was  more  gaunt  and  Don  Quixote-like.  He 
was  quaintly  dressed  (according  to  the  costume  of  that 
unconstrained  period)  in  a  brown  fustian  jacket  and 
striped  pantaloons.  There  was  something  of  a  roll,  a 
lounge  in  his  gait,  not  unlike  his  own  '  Peter  Bell.' 
There  was  a  severe,  worn  pressure  of  thought  about  his 
temples,  a  fire  in  his  eye  (as  if  he  saw  something  in 
objects  more  than  the  outward  appearance),  an  intense, 

*   "Her  eyes  are  wild." 


348     THREE  PERSONS  AND  ONE  SOUL    [chap,  xiv 

high,  narrow,  forehead,  a  Roman  nose,  cheeks  furrowed 
by  strong  purpose  and  feeling,  and  a  convulsive  inclina- 
tion to  laughter  about  the  mouth,  a  good  deal  at  variance 
with  the  solemn,  stately  expression  of  the  rest  of  his 
face.  Chan  trey's  bust  wants  the  marking  traits,  but  he 
was  teased  into  making  it  regular  and  heavy.  Haydon's 
head  of  him,  introduced  into  the  Entrance  of  Christ  into 
Jerusalem,  is  the  most  like  his  drooping  weight  of 
thought  and  expression.  He  sat  down  and  talked  very 
naturally  and  freely,  with  a  mixture  of  clear  gushing 
accents  in  his  voice,  a  deep  guttural  intonation,  and  a 
strong  tincture  of  the  northern  burr  like  the  crust  on 
wine.  He  instantly  began  to  make  havoc  of  the  half 
of  a  Cheshire  cheese  on  the  table,  and  said  triumphantly 
that  '  his  marriage  with  experience  had  not  been  so  pro- 
ductive as  Mr.  Southey's  in  teaching  him  a  knowledge 
of  the  good  things  of  this  life.'  He  had  been  to  see  the 
'  Castle  Spectre,'  by  Monk  Lewis,*  while  at  Bristol,  and 
described  it  very  well.  He  said  '  it  fitted  the  taste  of 
the  audience  like  a  glove.'  This  ad  captandum  merit 
was,  however,  by  no  means  a  recommendation  of  it, 
according  to  the  severe  principles  of  the  new  school, 
which  reject  rather  than  court  popular  effect.  .  .  .  We 
went  over  to  All-Foxden  again  the  day  following,  and 
Wordsworth  read  us  the  story  of  '  Peter  Bell  '  in  the 
open  air;  and  the  comment  made  upon  it  by  his  face 
and  voice  was  very  different  from  that  of  some  later 
critics  !  Whatever  might  be  thought  of  the  poem,  '  his 
face  was  a  book  where  men  might  read  strange  matters,' 
and  he  announced  the  fate  of  his  hero  in  prophetic  tones 
There  is  a  chaunt  in  the  recitation  both  of  Coleridge  and 
Wordsworth,  which  acts  as  a  spell  upon  the  hearer,  and 
disarms  the  judgment.  Perhaps  they  have  deceived 
themselves  by  making  habitual  use  of  this  ambiguous 
accomplishment.  Coleridge's  manner  is  more  full,  ani- 
mating, and  varied;  Wordsworth's  more  equable,  sus- 
tained, and  internal.  The  one  might  be  termed  more 
dramatic,  the  other  more  lyrical." 

*  "  The  Castle  Spectre,"  a  blood-curdling  tragedy  by  Matthew  Gregory 
Lewis — "  Monk  "  Lewis — was  performed  for  the  first  time  at  Drury  Lane 
Theatre,  London,  on  December  14,  1797,  and  afterwards  in  the  winter  and 
spring  of  1798.  (See  Genest's  "  Account  of  the  English  Stage,"  VII.  332, 
414,  and  505).  Wordsworth,  in  a  letter  to  James  Tobin,  March  6,  1798, 
mentions  the  extravagant  popular  success  which  it  achieved.  He  evi- 
dently, from  Hazlitt's  remark,  saw  it  played  at  Bristol  near  the  end 
of  May. 


1798]  ONCE  MORE  AFOOT  349 

The  reader  must  disentangle  for  himself  what  is 
original  in  this  passage  from  what  was  woven  into  it 
upon  reflection  and  after  the  lapse  of  years.  There  may 
well  be  some  inaccuracies,  but  on  the  whole  this  is  much 
the  most  complete  and  interesting  portrayal  of  Words- 
worth in  youth  or  early  manhood  that  we  possess.  The 
precise  date,  and  even  the  month,  of  Hazlitt's  visit  is 
uncertain.     He  says : 

"  Thus  I  passed  three  weeks  at  Nether  Stowey  and  in 
the  neighbourhood,  generally  devoting  the  afternoons 
to  a  delightful  chat  in  an  arbour  made  of  bark  by  the 
poet's  friend  Tom  Poole,  sitting  under  two  fine  elm 
trees,  and  listening  to  the  bees  humming  round  us,  while 
we  quaffed  our  flip." 

He  describes  a  jaunt  along  the  coast  from  Dunster  to 
Lynton,  with  Coleridge  and  a  young  man  from  Stowey. 
Coleridge  told  him  that  he  and  Wordsworth  had  once 
intended  making  the  Valley  of  Rocks,  near  Lynton,  the 
scene  of  a  prose  tale,  and  that  the  "  Lyrical  Ballads  " 

"  were  an  experiment  to  be  tried  by  him  and  Words- 
worth to  see  how  far  the  public  taste  would  endure 
poetry  written  in  a  more  natural  and  simple  style  than 
had  hitherto  been  attempted ;  totally  disregarding  the 
artifices  of  poetical  diction,  and  making  use  only  of  such 
words  as  had  probably  been  common  in  the  most 
ordinary  language  since  the  days  of  Henry  II." 

Hazlitt  tells  us  that,  in  a  day  or  two  after  they  re- 
turned from  Lynton  to  Stowey,  Coleridge  set  out  for 
Germany.  Making  allowance  for  vagueness  at  the 
various  points  of  this  narrative,  we  are  almost  forced  to 
conclude  that  the  visit  took  place  in  May  or  June. 

A  picture  of  the  sordid  side  of  rural  life,  composed  by 
Wordsworth  about  this  time,  and  known  in  his  family 
as  the  "  Somersetshire  Tragedy,"  was  not  deemed  fit  for 
publication. 

The  lease  of  Alfoxden  expired  June  24,  and  two  days 
later  the  Words  worths  were  homeless  wanderers  again. 
According  to  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln,*  the  poet  gave  the 
following  account  of  their  first  movements: 

*  "  Memoirs,"  I.  118. 


350     THREE  PERSONS  AND  ONE  SOUL    [chap.xiv 

"  We  left  Alfoxden  on  Monday  morning,  the  26th  of 
June,  stayed  with  Coleridge  till  the  Monday  following, 
then  set  forth  on  foot  towards  Bristol.  We  were  at 
Cottle's  for  a  week,  and  thence  we  went  toward  the 
banks  of  the  Wye.  We  crossed  the  Severn  Ferry,  and 
walked  ten  miles  further  to  Tintern  Abbey,  a  very 
beautiful  ruin  on  the  Wye.  The  next  morning  we 
walked  along  the  river  through  Monmouth  to  Goderich 
Castle,  there  slept,  and  returned  the  next  day  to  Tintern, 
thence  to  Chepstow,  and  from  Chepstow  back  again  in 
a  boat  to  Tintern,  where  we  slept,  and  thence  back  in 
a  small  vessel  to  Bristol." 

The  most  precious  result  of  this  journey  was  the  poem 
entitled  "  Lines  written  a  few  miles  above  Tintern 
Abbey,"  of  which  Wordsworth  says,  in  the  Fenwick 
note:  "  No  poem  of  mine  was  composed  under  circum- 
stances more  pleasant  for  me  to  remember  than  this. 
I  began  it  upon  leaving  Tintern,  after  crossing  the  Wye, 
and  concluded  it  just  as  I  was  entering  Bristol  in  the 
evening,  after  a  ramble  of  four  or  five  days  with  my 
sister.  Not  a  line  of  it  was  altered,  and  not  any  part 
of  it  written  down  till  I  reached  Bristol.  It  was  pub- 
lished almost  immediately  after  in  the  little  volume  of 
which  so  much  has  been  said  in  these  notes  " — i.e., 
"  Lvrical  Ballads." 


Alfoxden, 


CHAPTER  XV 

"LYRICAL  BALLADS" 

We  are  now  approaching  the  most  momentous  event  in 
Wordsworth's  life,  so  far  as  his  connection  with  the 
public  is  concerned.  For  many  months  he  and  Cole- 
ridge had  been  preparing  to  make  what  proved  to  be 
one  of  the  most  gallant  adventures  in  literary  history. 
They  had  exerted  themselves  to  produce  enough  poetry 
to  fill  a  volume,  and  were  already  planning  with  Cottle 
for  its  publication. 

It  is  perhaps  not  generally  known  that  the  names  of 
S.  T.  Coleridge  and  W.  Wordsworth  had  already  ap- 
peared in  print  together.  In  a  rare  copy  of  "  Poems  by 
Francis  Wrangham,  M.A.,  member  of  Trinit}'  College, 
Cambridge,"  published  in  1795,  and  now  belonging  to 
the  library  of  Princeton  University,  they  are  both 
credited  with  translations,  the  former  of  some  Latin 
and  the  latter  of  some  French  verses,  already  mentioned, 
'  L'Education  de  l'Amour,"  by  the  Vicomte  de  Segur. 
The  first  poem  in  the  little  volume  is  dedicated  to  Basil 
Montagu. 

The  two  poets  had  been  in  communication  with  Cottle 
on  the  subject  of  printing  their  tragedies.  In  a  letter 
to  Cottle*  dated  merely  1798,  Coleridge  says:  "  I  am 
requested  by  Wordsworth  to  put  to  you  the  following 
questions  :  What  could  you,  conveniently  and  prudently, 
and  what  would  you  give  for — first,  our  two  Tragedies, 
with  small  prefaces,  containing  an  analysis  of  our  prin- 
cipal characters?  .  .  .  Second,  Wordsworth's  Salis- 
bury Plain  and  Tale  of  a  Woman;  which  poems,  with  a 

*  "  Early  Recollections,"  1.  298,  and  "  Reminiscences,"  166. 
351 


352  "  LYRICAL  BALLADS "  [chap,  xv 

few  others  which  he  will  add,  and  notes,  will  make  a 
volume."  To  this  Cottle  appends  the  statement:  "  I 
offered  Mr.  Coleridge  and  Mr.  Wordsworth  thirty  guineas 
each,  as  proposed,  for  their  two  tragedies;  but  which, 
after  some  hesitation,  was  declined,  from  the  hope  of 
introducing  one  or  both  on  the  stage.  The  volume  of 
Poems  was  left  for  some  future  arrangement." 

According  to  Cottle,  he  met  Wordsworth  for  the  first 
time  at  Stowey,  though,  as  we  have  seen,  there  is  reason 
to  think  their  acquaintance  began  at  Bristol  long  before 
the  poet  settled  in  Somersetshire.  The  passage  in 
Cottle's  "  Reminiscences  "*  is  very  interesting: 

"  A  visit  to  Mr.  Coleridge  at  Stowey  had  been  the 
means  of  my  introduction  to  Mr.  Wordsworth,  who  read 
me  many  of  his  Lyrical  Pieces,  when  I  immediately  per- 
ceived in  them  extraordinary  merit,  and  advised  him  to 
publish  them,  expressing  a  belief  that  they  would  be 
well  received.  I  further  said  he  should  be  at  no  risk; 
that  I  would  give  him  the  same  sum  which  I  had  given 
to  Mr.  Coleridge  and  to  Mr.  Southey,  and  that  it  would 
be  a  gratifying  circumstance  to  me,  to  have  been  the 
publisher  of  the  first  volumes  of  three  such  poets,  as 
Southey,  Coleridge,  and  Wordsworth ;  such  a  distinction 
might  never  again  occur  to  a  provincial  bookseller.  To 
the  idea  of  publishing  he  expressed  a  strong  objection, 
and  after  several  interviews  I  left  him,  with  an  earnest 
wish  that  he  would  reconsider  his  determination,  Soon 
after  Mr.  Wordsworth  sent  me  the  following  letter : 

"  '  Allfoxden, 

"  '  1 2th  April,  1798. 

"  '  My  dear  Cottle, 

"  '  .  .  .  You  will  be  pleased  to  hear  that  I  have 
gone  on  very  rapidly  adding  to  my  stock  of  poetry. 
Do  come  and  let  me  read  it  to  you  under  the  old  trees 
in  the  park.  We  have  a  little  more  than  two  months 
to  stay  in  this  place.  Within  these  four  days  the  season 
has  advanced  with  greater  rapidity  than  I  ever  remem- 
ber, and  the  country  becomes  almost  every  hour  more 
lovely-     God  bless  you. 

"  '  Your  affectionate  friend, 

"  '  WT.  Wordsworth.'  " 

*  p.  174  and  "  Early  Recollections,"  I.  309. 


i798j  DEALINGS  WITH  COTTLE  353 

The  invitation  was  repeated  by  Coleridge  and  again, 
in  the  following  note,  by  Wordsworth : 

"  Dear  Cottle, 

"  WTe  look  for  you  with  great  impatience.  We 
will  never  forgive  you  if  you  do  not  come.  I  say  nothing 
of  the  '  Salisbury  Plain  '  till  I  see  you.  I  am  deter- 
mined to  finish  it,  and  equally  so  that  you  shall  publish. 

"  I  have  lately  been  busy  about  another  plan,  which 
I  do  not  wish  to  mention  till  I  see  you ;  let  this  be  very, 
very  soon,  and  stay  a  week  if  possible;  as  much  longer 
as  you  can.     God  bless  you,  dear  Cottle, 

"  Yours  sincerely, 

■'  Allfoxden,  "  w-  Wordsworth. 

"  gth  May,  1798." 

Cottle  prints  in  the  same  connection,*  but  without 
date,  a  long  letter  from  Coleridge,  which  shows  that  he 
and  the  Wordsworths  were  trying  to  raise  money  for 
some  unusual  expense,  undoubtedly  their  trip  to  Ger- 
many. It  was  perhaps  written  at  about  the  same  time 
as  Wordsworth's  of  May  9.  There  is  no  mention  of 
Cottle's  visit  in  Dorothy's  Journal,  but  it  might  have 
occurred  between  May  9  and  16,  when  she  made  no 
entries.  Omitting  several  sentences  already  quoted, 
the  letter  is  as  follows : 

"  My  dear  Cottle, 

"  Neither  Wordsworth  or  myself  could  have  been 
otherwise  than  uncomfortable,  if  anybody  but  yourself 
had  received  from  us  the  first  offer  of  our  Tragedies, 
and  of  the  volume  of  Wordsworth's  Poems.  At  the 
same  time,  we  did  not  expect  that  you  could,  with 
prudence  and  propriety,  advance  such  a  sum  as  we 
should  want  at  the  time  we  specified.  In  short,  we  both 
regard  the  publication  of  our  Tragedies  as  an  evil.  It 
is  not  impossible  but  that  in  happier  times,  they  may 
be  brought  on  the  stage :  and  to  throw  away  this  chance 
for  a  mere  trifle,  would  be  to  make  the  present  moment 
act  fraudulently  and  usuriously  towards  the  future  time. 
.  .  .  We  consider  the  publication  of  them  an  evil  on  any 
terms ;  but  our  thoughts  were  bent  on  a  plan  for  the 
accomplishment  of  which  a  certain  sum  of  money  was 
necessary,  (the  whole,)  at  that  particular  time,  and  in 

*   "  Early  Recollections,"  I.  310,  and  "  Reminiscences,"  176. 
I.  2\ 


354  "  LYRICAL  BALLADS "  [chap,  xv 

order  to  this  we  resolved,  although  reluctantly,  to  part 
with  our  Tragedies:  that  is,  if  we  could  obtain  thirty 
guineas  for  each,  and  at  less  than  thirty  guineas  Words- 
worth will  not  part  with  the  copy-right  of  his  volume  of 
Poems.  We  shall  offer  the  Tragedies  to  no  one,  for  we 
have  determined  to  procure  the  money  some  other  way. 
If  you  choose  the  volume  of  Poems,  at  the  price  men- 
tioned, to  be  paid  at  the  time  specified,  i.e.  thirty  guineas, 
to  be  paid  sometime  in  the  last  fortnight  of  July,  you 
may  have  them;  but  remember,  my  dear  fellow7  !  I  write 
to  you  now  merely  as  a  bookseller,  and  entreat  you,  in 
your  answer,  to  consider  yourself  only;  as  to  us,  although 
money  is  necessary  to  our  plan,  yet  the  plan  is  not  neces- 
sary to  our  happiness ;  and  if  it  were,  W.  could  sell  his 
Poems  for  that  sum  to  someone  else,  or  we  could  procure 
the  money  without  selling  the  Poems.  So  I  entreat  you 
again  and  again,  in  your  answer,  which  must  be  im- 
mediate, consider  yourself  only.   .   .  . 

"  At  all  events,  come  down,  Cottle,  as  soon  as  you 
can,  but  before  Midsummer,  and  we  will  procure  a  horse 
easy  as  thine  own  soul,  and  we  will  go  on  a  roam  to 
Linton  and  Linmouth,  which,  if  thou  comest  in  May,  will 
be  in  all  their  pride  of  woods  and  waterfalls,  not  to 
speak  of  its  august  cliffs,  and  the  green  ocean,  and  the 
vast  Valley  of  Stones,  all  which  live  disdainful  of  the 
seasons,  or  accept  new  honours  only  from  the  winter's 
snow.  At  all  events  come  down,  and  cease  not  to 
believe  me  much  and  affectionately  your  friend, 

"  S.  T.  Coleridge." 

Cottle  says  that  he  accepted  these  invitations,  and 
spent  a  week  wTith  Coleridge  and  Wordsworth  at  Alfoxden 
House,  during  which  time,  besides  the  reading  of  manu- 
script poems,  they  took  him  on  the  proposed  "  roam." 

"  At  this  interview,"  he  says,  "  it  was  determined 
that  the  volume  should  be  published  under  the  title  of 
'  Lyrical  Ballads,'  on  the  terms  stipulated  in  a  former 
letter:  that  this  volume  should  not  contain  the  poem 
of  '  Salisbury  Plain,'  but  only  an  extract  from  it;  that 
it  should  not  contain  the  poem  of  '  Peter  Bell,'  but  con- 
sist rather  of  sundry  shorter  pieces  more  recently  written. 
I  had  recommended  two  volumes,  but  one  was  fixed  on, 
and  that  to  be  published  anonymously.  It  was  to  be 
begun  immediately,  and  with  the  '  Ancient  Mariner  '; 
which  poem  I  brought  with  me  to  Bristol." 


i7q8]  SOJOURN  IN  BRISTOL  355 

Cottle  had  good  reason  to  expect  great  things  of 
Wordsworth.  In  "Early  Recollections,"  I.  251,  and 
"  Reminiscences,"  p.  143,  he  writes: 

"  Mr.  Coleridge  says,  in  a  letter  received  from  him 
March  8th,  1798,  'The  giant  Wordsworth — God  love 
him  !  When  I  speak  in  the  terms  of  admiration  due  to 
his  intellect,  I  fear  lest  these  terms  should  keep  out  of 
sight  the  amiableness  of  his  manners.  He  has  written 
near  twelve  hundred  lines  of  blank  verse,  superior,  I 
hesitate  not  to  aver,  to  anything  in  our  language  which 
any  way  resembles  it.'  " 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  know  that  nine  years  afterwards  the 
flame  of  Coleridge's  admiration  burned  just  as  brightly, 
for  Cottle  says  that  in  1807  he  received  a  letter  from 
him,  saying  of  Wordsworth:  "  He  is  one  whom  God 
knows  I  love  and  honour  as  far  beyond  myself  as  both 
morally  and  intellectually  he  is  above  me." 

The  poets  objected  to  some  of  the  details  proposed  by 
Cottle,  and  there  was  more  correspondence  on  the  sub- 
ject. In  the  course  of  the  summer,  the  Alfoxden  idyll 
being  at  an  end,  Coleridge  removed  to  Westbury,  two 
miles  from  Bristol.  After  the  Wye  excursion,  as  we 
have  seen,  the  Wordsworths  returned  to  Bristol,  about 
July  9,  and  appear  to  have  remained  there  about  six 
weeks.  The  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  quoting  either  from 
letters  of  Miss  Wordsworth  or  from  some  journal  of 
hers  now  lost,  reports  that  on  July  18,  1798,  she  wrote: 
"  William's  poems  are  now  in  the  press;  they  will  be 
out  in  six  weeks  ";  and  on  September  13:  "  They  are 
printed,  but  not  published  ...  in  one  small  volume, 
without  the  name  of  the  author;  their  title  is  '  Lyrical 
Ballads,  with  other  poems.'  Cottle  has  given  thirty 
guineas  for  William's  share  of  the  volume." 

It  was  printed  at  Bristol  on  or  about  September  1. 
The  impression  consisted  of  five  hundred  copies.  As 
originally  printed,  the  title-page  was:* 

"  Lyrical  Ballads/with/A  few  other  Poems. /Bristol  :/Printed  by 
Biggs  &  Cottle, /For  T.  V  Longman,  Pater-Noster  Row,  London./ 1 798. 

*  Sec  Mr.  Thomas  Hutchinson's  Biographical  Note  in  his  valuable 
reprint,  1898.  He  states  that  he  knows  of  only  one  copy  with  this  title- 
page  -viz.,  the  one,  formerly  Southey's,  which  is  now  in  the  British 
Museum. 


356  "  LYRICAL  BALLADS "  [chap,  xv 

It  was  an  octavo  in  paper  boards.     Other  copies  have 
the  following  title-page : 

"  Lyrical  Ballads,/with/A  few  other  Poems. /London  :/Printed  for 
J.  &  A.  Arch,  Gracechurch-street./iygS." 

The  copy  at  the  British  Museum,  besides  other  differ- 
ences, contains  a  poem  of  Coleridge,  "  Lewti;  or  the 
Circassian  Love-Chant,"  which  had  appeared  in  The 
Morning  Post,  a  London  newspaper,  on  April  13. 
Though  it  had  been  printed  over  a  pseudonym,  the 
publisher  of  The  Morning  Post,  Daniel  Stuart,  and  no 
doubt  other  persons,  knew  it  was  by  Coleridge.  For 
this  poem  a  new  one,  "  The  Nightingale,"  was  therefore 
substituted.  Loyal  compliance  with  the  poets'  desire 
for  anonymity  may  have  induced  Cottle  to  forgo  the 
anticipated  pleasure  of  figuring  as  their  publisher,  after 
first  printing  a  few  copies  in  which  his  name  appeared. 
He  was  known  to  be  their  friend,  and  to  have  had  many 
business  dealings  with  Coleridge.  Mr.  Thomas  Hutchin- 
son gives  him  the  benefit  of  this  conjecture,  but  inclines 
to  believe  that  a  far  different  reason  had  greater  weight 
with  the  aspiring  publisher.  In  Cottle's  opinion  Southey 
was  as  great  a  poet  as  either  of  the  others.  He  was 
more  prolific,  and  his  work  had  already  attracted  favour- 
able attention,  whereas  there  was  entire  truth  in  a 
remark  made  by  Coleridge  a  few  months  before,  that 
Wordsworth's  name  was  nothing  to  a  large  number  of 
persons,  and  that  his  own  stank. 

There  had  been  a  sad  quarrel  between  Southey  and 
Coleridge,  the  latter  accusing  the  former  of  wishing  to 
ruin  the  Pantisocracy  scheme.  When  this  old  sore  was 
healed,  a  misunderstanding,  which  involved  Charles 
Lloyd  and  Lamb  in  a  league  with  Southey  against  the 
unconscious  Coleridge,  arose  about  some  of  Coleridge's 
verses  which  were  erroneously  supposed  to  reflect  upon 
Southey.  Mr.  Hutchinson  would  have  us  believe  that 
Southey,  being  determined  to  write  a  hostile  review  of 
the  book,  and  not  wishing  to  injure  Cottle,  persuaded 
him  to  dispose  of  his  stock.  I  am  not  prepared  to  deny 
this  charge,  which  is  supported  with  great  ability,  but 
it  seems  almost  too  bad  to  believe.     However  that  may 


1798]  SOUTHEY'S  REVIEW  357 

be,  the  fact  is  that  Cottle  turned  over  to  Arch  nearly 
the  whole  impression;  and  his  alleged  reason — namely, 
that  the  sale  was  slow — can  hardly  have  been  the  only 
one,  because  he  did  it  within  the  first  two  weeks,  with- 
out waiting  to  see  how  the  public  would  receive  the  book. 
Cottle  refers  to  the  transaction  in  a  would-be  casual 
way,  which  shows  that  he  felt  some  regret,  saying:* 

"  As  a  curious  literary  fact,  I  might  mention  that  the 
sale  of  the  first  edition  of  the  '  Lyrical  Ballads  '  was  so 
slow,  and  the  severity  of  most  of  the  reviews  so  great, 
that  their  progress  to  oblivion,  notwithstanding  the 
merit  which  I  was  quite  sure  they  possessed,  seemed 
ordained  to  be  as  rapid  as  it  was  certain.  I  had  given 
thirty  guineas  for  the  copy-right  as  detailed  in  the  pre- 
ceding letters ;  but  the  heavy  sale  induced  me  at  length 
to  part  with,  at  a  loss,  the  largest  proportion  of  the  im- 
pression of  Five  Hundred,  to  Mr.  Arch,  a  London  book- 
seller. After  this  transaction  had  occurred,  I  received 
a  letter  from  Mr.  Wordsworth,  written  the  day  before 
he  set  sail  for  the  continent,  requesting  me  to  make 
over  my  interest  in  the  '  Lyrical  Ballads  '  to  Mr.  John- 
son, of  St.  Paul's  Churchyard.  This  I  could  not  have 
done,  had  I  been  so  disposed,  as  the  engagement  had 
been  made  with  Mr.  Arch." 

Only  one  criticism  of  the  book  appeared,  so  far  as  I 
know,  before  December,  and  that  was  Southey's  very 
unfavourable  and  condescending  article  in  The  Critical 
Review  for  October. 

On  August  27  Wordsworth  and  his  sister  arrived  in 
London,  having  seen  the  University  of  Oxford  on  the 
way.  Where  they  stayed  or  how  they  occupied  them- 
selves in  London  is  not  known.  We  do  not  touch  solid 
ground  again  until  Dorothy  begins  her  Journal  of  their 
travels,  without  which  their  residence  in  Germany  would 
be  almost  a  blank  to  us.  We  know  that  the  tour  had 
been  long  in  contemplation,  and  was  carefully  planned. 
As  early  as  March  1 1,  1798,  Wordsworth  had  written  to 
James  Losh,f  a  friend  at  Carlisle,  urging  him  to  join  the 

*   "  Reminiscences,"  257. 

f  The  letter  is  printed  in  Professor  Knight's  "  Life  of  Wordsworth," 
I.  147,  and  in  his  "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,"  III.  358. 


358  "  LYRICAL  BALLADS "  [chap,  xv 

travelling  party,  which  was  to  include  both  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Coleridge.  It  was  their  plan,  he  said,  to  pass  two  years 
in  Germany.  They  hoped  to  settle  near  a  university, 
and,  if  possible,  in  a  mountainous  district.  On  account 
of  the  expense  of  travelling,  they  wished  to  find  this 
place  not  far  from  Hamburg.  All  these  requirements 
point  to  Gottingen.  Wordsworth  also  confides  to  Losh 
that  he  has  written  706  lines  of  a  poem,  which  he  hopes 
to  make  of  considerable  utility.  "  Its  title,"  he  says, 
"  will  be  The  Recluse;  or,  Views  of  Nature,  Man,  and 
Society."  We  are  not  at  all  bound  to  suppose  that 
these  lines  were  ever  included  among  the  1 ,200  or  1 ,300 
previously  mentioned. 

They  purposed  in  those  two  years  "  to  acquire  the 
German  language,"  and  to  furnish  themselves  "  with  a 
tolerable  stock  of  information  in  natural  science."  This 
is  what  he  tells  Losh,  in  behalf  not  only  of  himself,  but 
of  his  sister  and  the  Coleridges.  M.  Legouis  in  his  ad- 
mirable chapter  on  Wordsworth's  Relation  to  Science, 
has  shown  that  these  were  not  words  written  at  random, 
but  that  many  of  the  subjects  already  chosen  by  the 
poets  and  many  peculiarities  in  the  work  they  had 
already  accomplished  were  determined  by  a  wish  to 
study  "  facts  of  the  soul  "  in  a  scientific  manner.  Their 
purpose  was  to  observe  actual  cases,  unhampered  by  the 
factitious  distinctions  between  the  normal  and  the  ab- 
normal set  up  by  psychologists,  and  to  enrich  the  science 
of  mind,  at  that  time  so  meagrely  furnished  with  ex- 
amples. 

There  is  even  a  hint  of  these  scientific  pretensions  in 
a  letter  from  Charles  Lamb  to  Southey,  dated  July  28, 
1798: 

"  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  to  the  eternal  regret  of 
his  native  Devonshire,  emigrates  to  Westphalia — '  Poor 
Lamb  '  (these  were  his  last  words) '  if  he  wants  any  know- 
ledge he  may  apply  to  me  ' — in  ordinary  cases,  I  thanked 
him,  I  have  an  '  Encyclopaedia  '  at  hand,  but  on  such 
an  occasion  as  going  over  to  a  German  university,  I 
could  not  refrain  from  sending  him  the  following  proposi- 
tions, to  be  b}^  him  defended  or  oppugned  (or  both)  at 
Leipsic  or  Gottingen." 


1798 j  A  COMPLICATED  QUARREL  359 

Then  follows  a  list  of  propositions,  similar  to  a  list  which 
Lamb  had  sent  to  Coleridge  himself,  and  all  implying 
that  the  latter  was  a  liar,  a  sophist,  and  a  sentimentalist. 
Charles  Lloyd  had  poisoned  Lamb's  mind  with  false 
reports  about  their  friend.  Lamb  had  for  once  allowed 
his  playfulness  to  turn  into  something  like  mischief. 
Coleridge  had  taken  offence.  Their  old  comradeship 
had  been  rudely  broken.  Dorothy  Wordsworth  had 
been  brought  into  the  quarrel  by  the  meddlesome  Lloyd. 
Coleridge  wrote  a  generous  letter,  full  of  patience  and 
true  humility,  to  his  mistaken  friend,  beginning,  "  Lloyd 
has  informed  me  through  Miss  Wordsworth  that  you 
intend  no  longer  to  correspond  with  me."*  The  sum- 
mer of  1798  was  thus  rendered  a  time  of  much  unhappi- 
ness  for  Coleridge.  His  former  pupil,  Charles  Lloyd, 
had  slandered  him.  He  may  have  suspected  his  wife's 
brother-in-law  and  his  former  associate,  Southey,  of 
trying  to  undermine  his  literary  reputation,  and  at  least 
he  felt  hurt  by  Southey 's  self-righteous  aloofness.  He 
thought  he  had  lost  the  love  of  his  oldest  friend,  Charles 
Lamb,  and  the  dream  of  having  the  Wordsworths  always 
near  him  at  Alfoxden  was  shattered.  Nether  Stowey 
was  no  longer  Arcady,  but  a  stupid  out-of-the-way 
village.  His  cottage  was  no  longer  the  delightful  tryst- 
ing-place  of  gods  and  muses,  but  the  mean,  cramped, 
and  almost  squalid  house  which  Poole  long  before  warned 
him  it  was.  Moreover,  for  a  man  who  naturally  dis- 
liked public  controversy,  and  desired  to  cultivate  his 
mind  in  tranquillity,  he  was  achieving  entirely  too  much 
notoriety.  He  said  very  truly  that  his  name  "  stank." 
A  group  of  clever  young  Tory  writers,  in  The  Anti- 
Jacobin,  were  assailing,  amid  general  applause,  the  repu- 
tation of  poets,  orators,  and  pamphleteers,  who  had 
been  so  imprudent  as  to  favour  the  Revolution.  They 
drove  this  routed  and  discouraged  band  before  them  in  a 
savage  pursuit.     To  be  overtaken  by  the  light  cavalry 

*  Mr.  E.  V.  Lucas  expresses  his  opinion  ("  Works  of  Charles  and  Mary 
Lamb,"  VI.  116)  that  about  this  time  Lamb  wrote  his  pathetic  lines,  "  The 
Old  Familiar  Faces,"  and  that  the  friend  mentioned  in  the  n<  xt  1o  the  last 
stanza  was  Coleridge. 


360  "LYRICAL  BALLADS"  [chap,  xv 

of  The  Anti- Jacobin  was  not  only  unpleasant,  but  dan- 
gerous. In  the  issue  for  July  9,  1798,  Coleridge  was 
distinctly  mentioned,  and  Wordsworth  probably  alluded 
to,  in  the  scurrilous  verses  entitled  "  New  Morality." 
Priestley,  Wakefield,  Thelwall,  Paine,  Williams,  Godwin, 
and  Holcroft,  are  pilloried  as  admirers  of  Lepaux,  a 
member  of  the  French  Directory,  and  leader  of  the 
Theophilanthropists ;  and  in  the  same  passage  occur 
these  lines : 

Couriers  and  Stars,  Sedition's  evening  host, 
Thou  Morning  Chronicle  and  Morning  Post, 
Whether  ye  make  the  Rights  of  Man  your  theme, 
Your  country  libel,  and  your  God  blaspheme, 
Or  dirt  on  private  worth  and  virtue  throw, 
Still,  blasphemous  or  blackguard,  praise  Lepaux  ! 

And  ye  five  other  wandering  bards,  that  move 
In  sweet  accord  of  harmony  and  love, 
Coleridge  and  Southey,  Lloyd,  and  Lamb  and  Co., 
Tune  all  your  mystic  harps  to  praise  Lepaux  ! 

The  newspapers  mentioned  were  Whig  journals.  Many 
of  Coleridge's  poems  were  first  printed  in  The  Morning 
Post.  The  Anti- Jacobin  was  succeeded  in  July  by 
another  publication  of  the  same  character  and  ten- 
dency, The  Anti-Jacobin  Review  and  Magazine,  which 
contained  caricatures  by  Gillray,  in  which  Coleridge  and 
Southey  are  represented  with  asses'  heads,  and  Lloyd 
and  Lamb  as  toad  and  frog.  In  a  set  of  verses,  "  The 
Anarchists,"  Coleridge,  Southey,  Lamb,  and  Lloyd,  are 
held  up  to  ridicule,  but  there  is  no  allusion  to  a  fifth 
member  of  the  company.  Paine,  Priestley,  Thelwall, 
Godwin,  Wakefield,  and  Holcroft,  figure  also  in  this  libel. 
Of  these  proceedings  even  Southey  wrote  :* 

"  What  I  think  the  worst  part  of  the  Anti-Jacobine 
abuse,  is  the  lumping  together  men  of  such  opposite 
principles;  this  is  stupid.  .  .  .  Violent  men  there  un- 
doubtedly are  among  the  democrats,  as  they  are  always 
called,  but  is  there  anyone  among  them  whom  the 
ministerialists  will  allow  to  be  moderate  ?  The  Anti- 
Jacobine  certainly  speaks  the  sentiments  of  govern- 
ment." 

*  Letter  to  C.  W.  W.  Wynn,  August  15,  1798. 


r798]  THE  VOLUME  PUBLISHED  361 

The  plan  of  taking  Mrs.  Coleridge  to  Germany  was 
given  up.  She  and  the  two  children,  Hartley  and 
Berkeley,  were  left  at  Nether  Stowey,  and  about  Sep- 
tember 10,  Coleridge  joined  the  Wordsworths  in  Lon- 
don.* The  anonymous  volume  of  joint  authorship, 
"  Lyrical  Ballads,  with  a  Few  Other  Poems,"  was  pub- 
lished, probably  just  after  his  arrival,  and  Coleridge 
arranged  with  Johnson,  the  bookseller,  to  publish  his 
"  Fears  in  Solitude,  written  in  1798,  during  the  alarm 
of  an  invasion;  to  which  are  added  France,  an  Ode; 
and  Frost  at  Midnight. "f  The  title-page,  as  before 
remarked,  reads  as  follows: 

"Lyrical  Ballads,  with  A  few  other  Poems.  /London  :/Printed  for 
J.  &  A.  Arch,  Gracechurch-street./i798." 

A  few  copies  have,  instead  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  lines, 
the  words:  "  Joseph  Cottle,  Bristol." 

The  volume  contained  the  following  poems:  "The 
Rime  of  the  Ancyent  Marinere  "  ;  "  The  Foster-Mother's 
Tale  ";  "  Lines  left  upon  a  Seat  in  a  Yew-tree  which 
stands  near  the  Lake  of  Esthwaite  " ;  "  The  Nightingale: 
a  Conversational  Poem";  "The  Female  Vagrant"; 
"  Goody  Blake  and  Harry  Gill  ";  "  Lines  written  at  a 
small  distance  from  my  House,  and  sent  by  my  little 
Boy  to  the  Person  to  whom  they  are  addressed"; 
"  Simon  Lee,  the  old  Huntsman  ";  "  Anecdote  for 
Fathers  ";  "  We  are  Seven  ";  "  Lines  written  in  early 
spring  ";  "The  Thorn  ";  "The  last  of  the  Flock  "; 
"  The  Dungeon  ";  "The  Mad  Mother  ";  "The  Idiot 
Boy  ";  "  Lines  written  near  Richmond,  upon  the 
Thames,  at  Evening";  "  Expostulation  and  Reply"; 
"  The  Tables  turned — an  Evening  Scene,  on  the  same 
subject  ";  "  Old  Man  travelling  ";  "  The  Complaint  of 
a  forsaken  Indian  Woman  ";  "  The  Convict  ";  "  Lines 
written  a  few  miles  above  Tintern  Abbey."     Of  these 

*   J.  Dykes  Campbell,  "  Life  of  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,"  p.  92. 

f  The  poets  acted  wisely  in  not  lingering  to  enjoy  the  praises  oJ  revic  wen 
and  readers.  They  would  have  had  to  wait  long.  The  first  favourable 
remark  that  I  have  been  able  to  discover  is  in  a  letter  from  Lamb  to 
Southey,  dated  November  8,  1798.  See  E.  V.  Lucas,  "  The  Works  of 
Charles  and  Mary  Lamb,"  Vol.  VI.,  p.  130. 


362  "  LYRICAL  BALLADS "  [chap,  xv 

twenty-three  pieces,  four  were  written  by  Coleridge — ■ 
"  The  Rime  of  the  Ancyent  Marinere,"  "  The  Foster- 
Mother's  Tale,"  "  The  Nightingale,"  and  "  The  Dun- 
geon." The  ineffective  titles  of  Wordsworth's  contribu- 
tions show  how  incapable  he  was  of  perceiving  small 
occasions  of  ridicule.  It  is  a  pity  that  many  of  his  best 
poems  are  marred  with  ill-sounding  labels  instead  of 
having  real  names  appropriate  to  their  contents.  He 
erred  in  this  way  not  through  indifference  to  popularity, 
but  through  a  sort  of  pedantry,  a  habit  of  paying  too 
close  attention  to  his  own  mental  history. 

On  Friday,  September  14,  William  and  Dorothy 
Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  and  a  young  man  from  Stowey 
named  John  Chester,  left  London  by  stage-coach.  The}^ 
reached  Yarmouth  at  noon  next  day,  and  sailed  for 
Hamburg  in  a  packet-boat  on  Sunday  morning.  Of 
their  voyage,  and  the  first  few  weeks  of  their  sojourn 
in  Germany,  we  have  detailed  but  not  very  systematic 
accounts  in  a  Journal  kept  by  Miss  Wordsworth  and 
some  letters  of  Coleridge  printed  in  The  Friend  for 
November  23,  December  7,  and  December  21,  1809,  and 
reprinted  in  "  Biographia  Literaria  "  under  the  title  of 
"  Satyrane's  Letters."  The  travellers  appear  to  have 
been  in  very  gay  spirits.  Coleridge's  description  of  the 
passage  sounds  like  the  aimless  rattle  of  a  clever  boy. 
He  exhibits  the  prejudices  of  a  person  who  has  never 
been  outside  of  his  native  land.  He  objects  to  the 
speech,  the  manners,  and  the  complexions,  of  the 
foreigners  on  board,  except  a  French  emigre,  with  whom 
he  and  his  friends  continued  to  associate  for  some  time 
after  landing.  Him  he  describes  as  "  a  perfect  gentle- 
man," a  type  "  frequent  in  England,  rare  in  France,  and 
found,  where  it  is  found,  in  age,  or  at  the  latest  period 
of  manhood ;  while  in  Germany  the  character  is  almost 
unknown."  He  reserves  even  a  lower  circle  for  "  the 
Anglo-American  democrats,"  among  whom  is  to  be 
sought  "  the  proper  antipode  of  a  gentleman."  He 
never  pauses  in  this  breathless  outburst  of  insularity  to 
explain  where  he  has  picked  up  so  much  knowledge  of 
countries  he  has  never  seen, 


1798]  ARRIVAL  IN  GERMANY  363 

On  arriving  at  Hamburg,  Wordsworth  went  to  seek 
lodgings,  while  the  others,  immobile  through  ignorance 
of  foreign  ways  and  languages,  guarded  the  luggage. 
His  knowledge  of  French  served  them  in  good  stead.* 
After  breakfasting  with  their  French  friend,  they  passed 
the  day  in  sight-seeing,  and  went  to  the  French  Theatre. 
They  visited  the  English  bookseller,  Remnant,  where 
they  bought  Burger's  poems  and  Percy's  "  Reliques."f 
Their  characteristic  interest  in  country  life  led  them  to 
various  small  towns  in  the  neighbourhood — Blankenese, 
Harburg,  and  Altona.  They  made  the  acquaintance  of 
one  of  the  numerous  brothers  of  the  poet  Klopstock, 
perhaps  Victor,  the  newspaper  editor,  who  introduced 
them  to  Christoph  Daniel  Ebeling,  professor  of  history 
and  Greek  at  the  Hamburg  academic  gymnasium,  and 
afterwards  the  well-known  librarian  of  the  city. 

At  Herr  Klopstock 's  house  they  met  at  dinner  his 
brother,  Friedrich  Gottlieb,  the  poet,  who,  Dorothy  tells 
us, "  maintained  an  animated  conversation  with  William 
during  the  whole  afternoon."  Coleridge  tells  us  J  that 
on  another  occasion  he  and  Wordsworth  called  on  the 
aged  German  poet,  and  had  a  long  conversation  in 
French,  Wordsworth  acting  as  interpreter.  Coleridge 
now  and  then  interposed  a  question  in  Latin.  Klop- 
stock confessed  that  he  knew  very  little  concerning  the 
history  of  German  poetry  and  the  elder  German  poets ; 
"  the  subject  had  not  particularly  excited  his  curiosity." 
But  he  talked  of  Milton  and  Glover,  and  "  thought 
Glover's  blank  verse  superior  to  Milton's,"  but,  after 

*  Coleridge  says,  in  "  Satyrane's  Letters,"  No.  i  :  "  My  companion, 
who,  you  recollect,  speaks  the  French  language  with  unusual  propriety, 
had  formed  a  kind  of  confidential  acquaintance  with  the  French  emigrant, 
who  appeared  to  be  a  man  of  sense,  and  whose  manners  were  those  of  a 
perfect  gentleman.  He  seemed  about  fifty,  or  rather  more."  He  proved 
to  be  "an  intimate  friend  of  the  celebrated  Abbe  de  Lisle;  and  from  flu- 
large  fortune  which  he  possessed  under  the  monarchy,  had  rescued  suffi- 
cient not  only  for  independence,  but  for  respectability."  A  fine  standard 
of  respectability  I     How  honest  Tom  Poole  would  have  blushed  for  his  hero  ! 

f  In  the  Catalogue  of  Wordsworth's  library  in  1859,  Percy's  "  Reliques," 
in  three  vols.,  1794,  is  mentioned,  with  tins  remark:  "  With  MS.  note, 
bought  at  Hamburgh,  1798,  by  William  Wordsworth." 

I   "  Satyrane's  Letters,"  No.  3. 


364  "  LYRICAL  BALLADS "  [chap,  xv 

all,  he  appeared  not  to  know  much  about  Milton,  whom 
he  had  read  in  a  prose  translation  when  he  was  fourteen. 
Wordsworth  proceeded  to  set  him  straight,  giving  "  his 
definition  and  notion  of  harmonious  verse,  that  it  con- 
sisted (the  English  iambic  blank  verse  above  all)  in  the 
apt  arrangement  of  pauses  and  cadences,  and  the  sweep 
of  whole  paragraphs."  The  talk  covered  a  wide  range; 
the  venerable  author,  in  his  feeble  state  of  health,  aroused 
the  sympathy  of  his  young  English  admirers ;  and  when 
they  left  him  they  walked  on  the  ramparts,  "  discoursing 
together  on  the  poet  and  his  conversation,"  till  their 
attention  was  diverted  to  the  beauty  and  singularity  of 
the  sunset  and  the  effects  on  the  objects  round  them. 
Wordsworth  returned  more  than  once  to  talk  with  Klop- 
stock,  and  they  discoursed  not  only  on  poetry,  but  on 
the  Kantian  philosophy,  on  Wolf,  Nicolai,  and  Engel, 
on  Rousseau,  on  the  drama.  WTords worth  expressed  his 
preference  for  Dryden  over  Pope.  Klopstock  spoke 
favourably  of  Goethe,  and  especially  of  Wieland,  but 
said  that  Schiller  could  not  live.  Wordsworth  took 
copious  notes  of  these  conversations,  and  it  is  evident 
that  he  was  well  versed  in  contemporary  German  litera- 
ture. Klopstock,  they  found,  had  once  been  an  en- 
thusiast for  the  French  Revolution,  but  was  now  quite 
turned  against  it. 

The  friends  must  have  realized  that  they  could  never 
learn  German  if  they  kept  together,  and  on  Sunday, 
October  i ,  Coleridge  and  Chester  set  out  for  Ratzeburg, 
a  small  town  about  thirty-five  miles  to  the  north-east.* 
Two  days  later  the  Wordsworths  took  the  diligence  to 
Braunschweig.  "  Dorothy  and  I,"  he  wrote  to  Poole, 
"  are  going  to  speculate  further  up  in  the  county." 
In  the  same  letter  which  contains  this  announcement  he 
remarks:  "  I  have  one  word  to  say  about  Alfoxden: 
pray,  keep  your  eye  upon  it.  If  any  series  of  accidents 
should  bring  it  again  into  the  market,  we  should  be 
glad  to  have  it,  if  we  could  manage  it."  Over  wretched 
roads  they  travelled  by  diligence  across  the  Luneburg 

*  Poole's  letters  to  Coleridge,  in  the  British  Museum,  are  directed  jn 
care  of  the  Pastor  Unruke  (Query:  Unruhe),  Ratzeburg. 


1798]       THE  WORDSWORTHS  AT  GOSLAR         365 

Heath,  and  into  the  Harz  Mountains.  It  took  them 
nearly  two  days  to  reach  Braunschweig,  and  one  day 
more  to  get  to  Goslar,  which  was  their  destination.  In 
this  ancient  and  beautiful  little  city  the}'  appear  to  have 
remained  at  least  till  January.  In  summer  it  would 
have  been  a  delightful  residence,  owing  to  its  situation 
among  the  hills;  but  they  soon  exhausted  its  winter 
attractions,  and,  failing  to  make  many  acquaintances, 
were  forced  to  lead  a  very  secluded  life.  Miss  Words- 
worth described  it  as  a  lifeless  town,  and  complained 
that  if  a  man  wished  to  go  into  society,  and  had  his 
wife  or  sister  with  him,  he  would  be  obliged  to  give 
entertainments.  So  they  tried  to  learn  German  from 
the  family  with  whom  they  lived,  and  by  reading. 
"  William,"  she  wrote  to  Mrs.  Marshall,  "  is  very  indus- 
trious. His  mind  is  always  active;  indeed,  too  much  so. 
He  over-wearies  himself,  and  suffers  from  pain  and 
weakness  in  the  side." 

The  WTordsworths,  while  at  Goslar,  lived  in  a  house 
which  is  still  standing — No.  86,  Breite-strasse.  It  was 
built  after  the  great  fire  of  1728,  was  formerly  No.  107, 
belonged  to  St.  Stephen's  parish,  and  was  occupied  in 
1799  by  the  widow  of  Georg  Christian  Ernst  Depper- 
mann.  This  Deppermann,  whose  family  originally 
came  from  Hamburg,  was  a  shopkeeper,  a  member  of 
the  merchants'  and  the  tailors'  guilds,  a  town-councillor, 
and  at  the  time  of  his  death,  in  1 796,  a  senator  of  Goslar. 
His  widow  died  December  28,  1800,  the  old  house  con- 
tinuing to  be  occupied  by  Johann  Heinrich  Friedrich 
Deppermann,  apparently  her  son.  The  latter  became  a 
burger  February  23,  1801 ,  and  on  the  next  day  a  member 
of  the  Kramer  Gild,  to  which  his  father  had  belonged. 
He  was  in  possession  of  the  house  in  181 1 ,  being  at  that 
time  thirty-nine  years  old,  or  two  years  younger  than 
Wordsworth.* 

*  These  facts,  never  previously  published,  were  communicated  to  me 
by  my  friend,  the  Rev.  Ambrose  White  Vernon,  who,  in  company  with 
Dr.  Elmer  Johnson,  the  learned  historian  of  the  Schwcnkfelclcr  denomina- 
tion, visited  Goslar  at  my  request  in  1913.  There  they  received  great 
kindness  and  indispensable  help  from  Professor  Hoelscher,  the  anti- 
quarian,  who  ransacked   the   city  archives.     The  record  of  the  Dcpper- 


366  "  LYRICAL  BALLADS "  [chap,  xv 

Coleridge,  meanwhile,  was  meeting  many  people  and 
enjoying  many  advantages  at  Ratzeburg,  for  which  he 
said  he  had  to  pay  dear.  "  Including  all  expenses,"  he 
wrote  to  Poole,  "  I  have  not  lived  at  less  than  two 
pounds  a  week.  Wordsworth  (from  whom  I  receive 
long  and  affectionate  letters)  has  enjoyed  scarcely  one 
advantage,  but  his  expenses  have  been  considerably  less 
than  they  were  in  England."*  Coleridge  was  amassing 
material  for  a  Life  of  Lessing,  a  work  suited  to  his 
genius,  and  called  for  by  the  needs  of  his  time,  but 
which  he  never  wrote.  The  only  passage  with  which  I 
am  acquainted  that  may  be  regarded  as  a  description 
of  Wordsworth's  surroundings  at  Goslar  is  the  following 
from  the  Fenwick  note  to  the  poem  beginning  "  A 
plague  on  your  languages,  German  and  Norse  ": 

"  A  bitter  winter  it  was  when  these  verses  were  com- 
posed by  the  side  of  my  Sister,  in  our  lodgings  at  a 
draper's  house  in  the  romantic  imperial  town  of  Goslar, 

mann  family,  under  whose  roof  the  Lucy  poems  perhaps  were  written, 
survives  in  the  following  documents,  hitherto  regarded  no  doubt  as  very 
dry,  but  henceforth  not  unconnected  with  romance  :  "  Der  Ehrlichen 
Kramer-Gilde  Nahmens-Buch,  1661-1840";  "  Vor  und  Zuname  der 
Einwohner  in  der  Commune  Goslar,  Stadt  Goslar,  181 1  ";  "  Protocollum 
judiciale  in  Sachen  des  Herrn  Senators  und  Tadelamtsverordneten  Dep- 
permanns,  Klagers,  etc.,  den  2iten  Januar,  1794  "  (Document  1700,  ff. 
7742);  "  Gegenrechnung  in  Sachen  des  Procurators  Volkmar,  Beklagten, 
wider  die  Frau  Senatorinn  Deppermail,  Klagerin,  Juni  20,  1800  ";  "  Buch 
der  Rathsherrn  Goslars  ";  "  Der  Ehrlichen  Worth  und  Gewandschneider 
Gilde  Nahmens-Buch";  "  Burger-Rolle  von  Ostern  1799  ab,"  fiber  die 
Stephani  Pfarre.  There  was  not  much  to  gladden  the  eye  in  any  of  these 
documents,  save  the  last.  But  here  was  a  discovery  indeed,  and  one  very 
much  needed  to  give  value  to  all  the  others.  For  at  the  top  of  the  left- 
hand  pages  in  this  long  brown  book  was  written,  "  Hausbesitzer  "  (House- 
holders), and  at  the  top  of  the  right-hand  pages,  "  Hausgenossen " 
(Lodgers);  and  under  No.  107,  on  the  left  was  the  record  of  Frau  Depper- 
mann's  death,  and  on  the  right  : 

"  Johann  Heinrich  Deppermann,  Kaufmakn 

23  Feb.  1801  Burger  geworden 
Hr.  William  W-sct^lcrd  e^e  Eagiasder  1st  weg  " 

The  line  through  the  name  was  drawn  iater,  Mr.  Vernon  tells  me,  and 
another  hand  had  added  the  last  two  words,  ist  weg  (has  gone).  There 
is  nothing  to  show  when  Herr  William  Waetsford,  an  Englishman,  went 
away,  but  of  his  identity  with  William  Wordsworth  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
*  E.  H.  Coleridge's  "  Letters  of  S.  T.  Coleridge,"  Vol.  L,  p.  268. 


THE    HOUSE    IN    GOSLAR    WHERE    THE    WORDSWORTHS 

LIVED    IN     l  ","■ 


[Vol.  I.,  p.  366 


1799]  DEPARTURE  FROM  GOSLAR  367 

on  the  edge  of  the  Hartz  Forest.  In  this  town  the 
German  emperors  of  the  Franconian  line  were  accus- 
tomed to  keep  their  court,  and  it  retains  vestiges  of 
ancient  splendour.  So  severe  was  the  cold  of  this 
winter,  that,  when  we  passed  out  of  the  parlour  warmed 
by  the  stove,  our  cheeks  were  struck  by  the  air  as  by 
cold  iron.  I  slept  in  a  room  over  a  passage  which  was 
not  ceiled.  The  people  of  the  house  used  to  say,  rather 
unfeelingly,  that  they  expected  I  should  be  frozen  to 
death  some  night ;  but  with  the  protection  of  a  pelisse 
lined  with  fur,  and  a  dog's  skin  bonnet,  such  as  was 
worn  by  the  peasants,  I  walked  daily  on  the  ramparts, 
or  in  a  sort  of  public  ground  or  garden  in  which  was  a 
pond.  Here,  I  had  no  companion  but  a  kingfisher,  a 
beautiful  creature,  that  used  to  glance  by  me.  I  con- 
sequently became  much  attached  to  it." 

This  exasperating  reticence  about  matters  of  interest, 
and  this  insistence  on  the  dog's-skin  bonnet,  are  typical 
of  the  Fenwick  notes  and  much  other  biographical 
material  left  by  the  poet.  We  are  grateful  for  the  king- 
fisher, however. 

On  January  4,  1799,  Coleridge  wrote  to  Poole: 
"  Wordsworth  has  left  Goslar,  and  is  on  his  road  into 
higher  Saxony  to  cruise  for  a  pleasanter  place;  he  has 
made  but  little  progress  in  the  language."  Ten  days 
later,  in  a  letter  to  his  wife,  he  says:*  "  I  hear  as  often 
from  Wordsworth  as  letters  can  go  backward  and  for- 
ward in  a  country  where  fifty  miles  a  day  and  night  is 
expeditious  travelling  !  He  seems  to  have  employed 
more  time  in  writing  English  than  in  studying  German. 
No  wonder  1  for  he  might  as  well  have  been  in  England 
as  at  Goslar,  in  the  situation  which  he  chose  and  with 
his  unseeking  manners.  He  has  now  left  it,  and  is  on 
his  journey  to  Nordhausen."  He  thinks  Wordsworth  is 
hampered  by  having  his  sister  with  him,  because  the 
Germans  cannot  understand  a  young  woman's  being 
given  so  much  freedom,  and  will  not  admit  the  pair  to 
their  homes.  "  Still,"  he  goes  on,  "  male  acquaintance 
he  might  have  had,  and  had  I  been  at  Goslar  I  would 
have  had  them;  but  W.,  God  love  him,  seems  to  have 
lost  his  spirits  and  almost  his  inclination  for  it." 

*  Sec,  for  both  these  letters,  "  Letters  oi  S.  T.  Coleridge,"  I.  271  and  272. 


368  "  LYRICAL  BALLADS "  [chap,  xv 

Coleridge  left  Ratzeburg  on  February  6,  and  arrived 
at  Gottingen  on  the  12th,  by  way  of  Hanover.  Had 
the  Wordsworths  been  still  at  Goslar,  he  would  hardly 
have  passed  so  near  without  visiting  them.  On  the 
other  hand,  Mr.  Gordon  Wordsworth  informs  me  that 
there  exists  a  letter  from  Dorothy  dated  "  Nordhausen, 
Feb.  27,  '99,"  from  which  it  is  clear  that  she  and  her 
brother  had  left  Goslar  on  February  23,  a  Saturday, 
and,  travelling  either  on  foot  or  in  a  post- waggon,  and 
sleeping  every  night  in  a  fresh  place,  had  got  as  far  as 
Nordhausen,  and  their  evident  plan  was  to  continue  the 
process.  She  says  the  morning  of  the  23rd  was  "  a 
delightful  morning,"  and  speaks  of  the  fir-woods.  The 
tone  of  her  letter  seems  to  imply  that  she,  at  least, 
was  making  this  journey  for  the  first  time.  Had  it  not 
been  for  this  letter,  I  should  have  had  no  hesitation 
in  saying  that  they  left  Goslar  early  in  January.  There 
is  nothing  more  till  April  23. 

Coleridge  came  to  Gottingen  provided  with  letters  of 
introduction  to  the  university  librarian  and  one  of  the 
professors,  matriculated  at  once,  and  plunged  into 
study.*  It  was  here  that  he  received,  a  few  weeks 
later,  the  news  of  his  little  son  Berkeley's  death,  and 
in  writing  to  Poole  about  that  sad  event,  and  how  it 
shook  his  sense  of  security,  he  says,  April  6:  "  Some 
months  ago  Wordsworth  transmitted  me  a  most  sublime 
epitaph.  Whether  it  had  any  reality  I  cannot  say. 
Most  probably,  in  some  gloomier  moment,  he  had  fancied 
the  moment  in  which  his  sister  would  die : 

Epitaph. 

A  slumber  did  my  spirit  seal, 

I  had  no  human  fears; 

She  seemed  a  thing  that  could  not  feel 

The  touch  of  earthly  years. 

No  motion  has  she  now,  no  force, 

She  neither  hears  nor  sees: 

Mov'd  round  in  Earth's  diurnal  course 

With  rocks,  and  stones,  and  trees  ! 

*   Poole's  letters   to   Coleridge,  now  in   the  British  Museum,  were  re- 
addressed  to  Gottingen,  "  beim  Puttier  Goring,  in  der  Burg  Strasse." 


1799]  COLERIDGE'S  LONELINESS  369 

The  Bishop  of  Lincoln  quotes  from  two  or  three  un- 
published letters  of  Coleridge  to  Wordsworth,  written 
while  they  were  both  in  Germany,  which  express  his 
longing  to  be  with  his  friends  :*  "  I  am  sure,"  he  writes, 
"  I  need  not  say  how  you  are  incorporated  into  the 
better  part  of  my  being ;  how,  whenever  I  soring  forward 
into  the  future  with  noble  affections,  I  always  alight  by 
your  side."  He  sends  them  some  experiments  he  has 
made  in  hexameter  verse,  which  were  long  afterwards 
included  among  his  printed  works.  Even  through  his 
technicalities  there  pierces  a  note  of  pathos.  He  is 
lonely  and  ill  and  weak : 

William,  my  teacher,  my  friend  !  dear  William  and  dear  Dorothea  ! 
*  *  *  *  * 

William,  my  head  and  my  heart,  dear  Poet  that  feelest  and  thinkest 
Dorothy,  eager  of  soul,  my  most  affectionate  sister  ! 
Many  a  mile,  O  !  many  a  wearisome  mile  are  ye  distant, 
Long,  long,  comfortless  roads,  with  no  one  eye  that  doth  know  us. 
O  !  it  is  all  too  far  to  send  to  you  mockeries  idle : 
Yea,  and  I  feel  it  not  right  !     But  O  !  my  friends,  my  beloved  ! 
Feverish  and  wakeful  I  lie, — I  am  weary  of  feeling  and  thinking; 
Every  thought  is  worn  down, — I  am  weary.,  yet  cannot  be  vacant. 
Five  long  hours  have  I  tossed,  rheumatic  heats,  dry  and  flushing, 
Gnawing  behind  in  my  head,  and  wandering  and  throbbing  about  me, 
Busy  and  tiresome,  my  friends,  as  the  beat  of  the  boding  night- 
spider. 

***** 

"  The  last  line  which  I  wrote  I  remember,  and  write 
it  for  the  truth  of  the  sentiment,  scarcely  less  true  in 
company  than  in  pain  and  solitude : 

"  William,  my  head  and  my  heart !  dear  William  and  dear  Dorothea  ! 
You  have  all  in  each  other;  but  I  am  lonely,  and  want  you  !" 

The  Wordsworths  were  far  less  constant  this  winter 
than  Coleridge  in  their  attachment  to  a  place  of  abode. 
The  Bishop  of  Lincoln,  who  was  favoured  with  informa- 
tion which  is  now  lost,  is  explicit  in  his  statement  that 
they  left  Goslar  on  February  io.f  He  implies  that  they 
went  pretty' far  south,  "  to  a  more  genial  climate  ";  for 
he  writes  of  the  poet:  "  He  felt  inspired  by  the  change 

*   "  Memoirs,"  I.  140.  t  Ibid.,  143. 

I.  24 


37o  "  LYRICAL  BALLADS "  [chap,  xv 

of  place.  When  he  set  forth  from  this  imperial  city 
[Goslar],  so  dull  and  dreary  as  it  had  been  to  him,  and 
when  the  prospect  of  a  transition  from  its  frost  and 
snow  to  a  more  genial  climate  opened  upon  him,  he 
seemed  to  be  like  one  emancipated  from  the  thraldom 
of  a  prison :  it  gave  life  and  alacrity  to  his  soul."  Clement 
Carlyon,*  an  English  medical  student,  arrived  at  Got- 
tingen  on  March  22,  1799.  Coleridge  had  arrived  on 
February  12.  In  the  interval  the  Wordsworths  appear 
to  have  visited  Coleridge.  "  Soon  after  Coleridge's 
arrival  at  Gottingen,"  writes  Carlyon, f  "  Mr.  Words- 
worth and  his  sister  came  from  Goslar  to  pay  him  a 
visit,  and  I  have  been  informed,  by  one  well  acquainted 
with  the  fact,  that  the  two  philosophers  rambled  away 
together  for  a  day  or  two  (leaving  Miss  Wordsworth  at 
Gottingen),  for  the  better  enjoyment  of  an  entire  inter- 
communion of  thought,  thereby  becoming  the  whole 
world  to  each  other,  and  not  this  world  only,  which  in- 
their  metaphysical  excursions  was  probably  but  a 
secondary  consideration."  Carlyon  testifies  to  Cole- 
ridge's admiration  for  Wordsworth,  saying:  "  When  we 
have  sometimes  spoken  complimentarily  to  Coleridge  of 
himself,  he  has  said  that  he  was  nothing  in  comparison 
with  him."  The  visit  to  which  Carlyon  refers  must  have 
been  very  brief,  and  after  it  the  Wordsworths  disappear 
for  about  eight  weeks. 

Considering  how  many  a  time  in  their  lives  they 
were  seized  with  a  sudden  and  irresistible  impulse  to 
wander,  and  with  almost  no  baggage,  it  would  not 
be  surprising  if  they  made  a  long  journey;  and  unless 
we  are  to  suppose  that  a  date  in  the  Fenwick  note  to 
the  poem  entitled  "  Stray  Pleasures  "  is  incorrect, 
they  ventured  into  France.  In  that  note  the  poet 
is  represented  to  have  said  to  Miss  Fenwick,  speaking 
of  certain  floating  mills:  "  I  noticed  several  upon  the 
river  Saone  in  the  year  1799,  particularly  near  the  town 
of  Chalons,  where  my  friend  Jones  and  I  halted  a  day 
when    we    crossed    France."     When    he    dictated    the 

*  Clement  Carlyon:  "  Early  Years  and  Late  Reflections,"  I.  16. 
j  Ibid.,  196. 


1799]       THE  WORDSWORTHS  DISAPPEAR         371 

Fenwick  notes  the  aged  poet  was  generally  garrulous, 
often  confused,  and  sometimes  indiscreet.  It  is  pos- 
sible that  he  was  on  this  occasion  referring  solely  to 
his  expedition  with  Jones.  But  the  contrary  view 
is  not  to  be  lightly  discarded.  One  turns  for  help 
to  the  first  131  lines  of  Book  First  of  "  The  Prelude," 
in  conjunction  with  the  first  sentence  of  Book  Seventh. 
But  here  one  meets  fresh  perplexity.  The  Bishop  of 
Lincoln  and  the  poet's  secretary,  Mr.  Carter,  who 
attended  to  the  publication  of  "  The  Prelude,"  are 
entirely  responsible  for  the  opinion  that  Goslar  was 
the  "  city  "  to  which  reference  is  made  in  these  passages. 
Reading  the  lines  without  their  assistance,  it  is  plain 
that  Wordsworth  meant  London,  and  was  combining, 
in  a  manner  usual  with  him,  his  recollections  of  more 
than  one  occasion.  He  "  long  had  pined,  a  discontented 
sojourner,"  there,  before  going  to  Racedown;  and  the 
rest  of  the  vague  narration  appears  to  refer  to  his 
movements  after  returning  to  England  from  Germany.* 
Coleridge  found  at  Gottingen  an  agreeable  circle 
of  English  students,  several  of  whom  were  Cambridge 
men.  He  was  known  even  then  as  a  "  noticeable  " 
man,  the  very  adjective  that  Wordsworth  applied  to 
him  years  afterwards  in  the  stanzas  beginning  "  Within 
our  happy  Castle  there  dwelt  One."  And  even  his 
English  companions,  Chester,  two  brothers  named 
Parry,  Green,  and  Clement  Carlyon,  the  last  of  whom 
wrote  a  prolix  account  of  their  adventures  together, 
have  received  from  association  with  him  a  certain  interest 
for  posterity.  He  was  admitted  to  the  society  of  his 
professors,  and  became  intimate  with  at  least  one 
German  student,  a  son  of  Professor  Blumenbach.  With 
this  young  man  he  made  many  excursions  far  and  near, 
and  engaged  in  endless  debates,  which  usually  turned 
into  monologues.  As  is  frequently  the  case  with 
travellers  in  their  first  year  abroad,  the  contrast  between 
foreign    ways    and    the    customs    of    his    own    country 

*  Perhaps  the  Bishop  of  Lincoln's  statements  in  "  Memoirs,"!.  143-  144, 
ware  based  entirely  (except  the  date  February  10)  upon  a  mistaken  inter- 
pretation of  "  The  Prelude." 


372  "  LYRICAL  BALLADS "  [chap,  xv 

brought  out  his  latent  chauvinism.  He  declaimed 
against  French  politics  and  German  religion,  even 
arguing  with  the  celebrated  theologian  Eichhorn.*  Yet 
though  shocked  at  the  neglect  of  religious  worship 
which  prevailed  among  the  students,  both  English  and 
German,  he  never  went  to  church,  as  one  of  the  Cam- 
bridge men  reports.  Walking  with  his  comrades  on 
the  well-shaded  city  wall  or  tramping  through  the 
neighbouring  forests,  he  edified  them  with  long  dis- 
courses on  ecclesiastical  history,  "  gravelled  the  pastors 
of  the  German  Church,"  recited  and  expounded  his  own 
poems,  read  and  showed  them  his  tragedy  "  Osorio," 
and  in  every  way,  through  jest  and  earnest,  played  like 
a  magician  upon  their  simpler  natures.  Coleridge 
could  not  be  suppressed,  but  Wordsworth,  with  those 
"  unseeking  manners  "  of  his  and  that  love  of  quiet, 
left  scarcely  a  trace  of  his  presence  in  Goslar.  On 
April  23,  1799,  Coleridge  wrote  to  his  wife:f 

"  Surely  it  is  unnecessary  for  me  to  say  how  infinitely 
I  languish  to  be  in  my  native  country,  and  with  how 
many  struggles  I  have  remained  even  so  long  in  Ger- 
many !  I  received  your  affecting  letter,  dated  Easter 
Sunday;  and  had  I  followed  my  impulses,  I  should  have 
packed  up  and  gone  with  Wordsworth  and  his  sister, 
who  passed  through  (and  only  passed  through)  this 
place  two  or  three  days  ago.  If  they  burn  with  such 
impatience  to  return  to  their  native  country,  they  who 
are  all  to  each  other,  wThat  must  I  feel  with  everything 
pleasant  and  everything  valuable  and  everything  dear 
to  me  at  a  distance — here,  where  I  may  truly  say  nry 
only  amusement  is — to  labour  !" 

In  a  letter  to  Poole,  dated  May  5,  he  writes :% 

11  Wordsworth  and  his  sister  passed  through  here,  as 
I  have  informed  you.  I  walked  on  with  them  five 
English  miles,  and  spent  a  day  with  them.  They  were 
melancholy  and  hypp'd.     W.  was  affected  to  tears  at 

*  See  a  letter  from  one  of  the  Parrys  in  Carlyon's  "  Early  Years  and 
Late  Reflections,"  I.  100. 

t  E.  H.  Coleridge's  "  Letters  of  S.  T.  Coleridge,"  I.  288. 

\  The  original  manuscript  of  this  letter  and  that  of  April  6  are  in  the 
British  Museum. 


I799J        PASSAGE  THROUGH  GOTTINGEN  373 

the  thought  of  not  being  near  me — wished  me,  of  course, 
to  live  in  the  North  of  England  near  Sir  Frederic  Vane's 
great  library.  .  .  .  W.  was  affected  to  tears,  very  much 
affected.  But  he  deemed  the  vicinity  of  a  library  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  his  health,  nay,  to  his  existence.  It 
is  painful  to  me,  too,  to  think  of  not  living  near  him: 
for  he  is  a  good  and  kind  man,  and  the  only  one  whom 
in  all  things  I  feel  my  superior.  ...  I  still  think 
Wordsworth  will  be  disappointed  in  his  expectations  of 
relief  from  reading,  without  society;  and  I  think  it 
highty  probable  that  where  I  live  there  he  will  live, 
unless  he  should  find  in  the  North  any  person,  or  per- 
sons, who  can  feel  with  and  understand  him,  can  recipro- 
cate and  react  upon  him.  My  many  weaknesses  are  of 
some  advantage  to  me;  they  unite  me  more  with  the 
great  mass  of  my  fellow-beings — but  dear  Wordsworth 
appears  to  me  to  have  hurtfully  segregated  and  isolated 
his  being.  Doubtless  his  delights  are  more  deep  and 
sublime,  but  he  has  likewise  more  hours  that  prey  on 
his  flesh  and  blood."* 

We  have  seen  that  WTordsworth  and  his  sister  passed 
through  Gottingen  on  their  way  home,  about  April  20. 
Where  they  resided  or  travelled  in  the  meanwhile,  I 
do  not  know.  In  a  letter  to  Thomas  Poole,  dated 
July  4,f  Miss  Wordsworth  writes: 

'  WTe  found  living  in  Germany,  with  the  enjoyment 
of  any  tolerable  advantages,  much  more  expensive  than 
we  expected,  which  determined  us  to  come  home  with 
the  first  tolerable  weather  of  the  spring.  We  left  Cole- 
ridge and  Mr.  Chester  at  Gottingen  ten  weeks  ago,  as 
you  probably  have  heard,  and  proceeded  with  as  little 
delay  as  possible,  travelling  in  a  German  diligence  to 
Hamburg,  whence  we  went  down  the  Elbe  in  a  boat  to 
Cuxhaven,  where  we  were  not  detained  longer  than  we 
wished  for  our  necessary  refreshment,  and  we  had  an 
excellent  passage  to  England  of  two  days  and  nights : 
We  proceeded  immediately  from  Yarmouth  into  the 
North,  where  we  are  now  staying  with  some  of  our  early 
friends  at  a  pleasant  farm  on  the  banks  of  the  Tees. 

*  "  Thomas  Poole  and  his  Friends,"  I.  298  ;  and  E.  H.  Coleridge's 
"  Letters  of  S.  T.  Coleridge,"  I.  296. 

t  "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,"  III.  366.  It  will  be  observed 
that  her  statement  of  the  time  when  they  left  Gottingen  corresponds 
almost  exactly  with  Coleridge's. 


374  "  LYRICAL  BALLADS "  [chap,  xv 

We  are  very  anxious  to  hear  from  Coleridge, — he  prom- 
ised to  write  us  from  Gottingen,  and  though  we  have 
written  twice  we  have  heard  nothing  of  him."* 

Clement  Carlyon  records  Coleridge's  comings  and 
goings,  his  excursion  to  the  Brocken  in  May,  his  trip 
to  Cassel,  his  departure  for  home  on  June  24,  his  affec- 
tionate references  to  his  wife  and  children,  his  expressions 
of  attachment  to  his  country.  Coleridge  carried  out 
his  intention  of  studying  natural  history  and  heard  the 
lectures  of  Professor  Blumenbach  on  that  subject. f 
He  also  made  considerable  additions  to  his  knowledge 
of  German  literature  and  German  philosophy  .J  But 
his  poetical  activities  slackened. 

Wordsworth,  on  the  contrary,  was  more  productive 
during  the  early  months  of  1 799  than  at  any  previous 
period  of  equal  length.  His  mind  was  thrown  back 
upon  his  own  past.  He  composed  several  long  pieces 
of  blank  verse,  which  he  said  in  after  years  were  intended 
as  part  of  "  The  Prelude."  It  seems  more  likely  that 
"  The  Prelude  "  was  not  really  planned  until  a  year 
later.  These  passages  of  reminiscence  sprang  spon- 
taneously from  his  power  of  living  in  the  past.  His 
gift  of  observation,  which  had  been  cultivated  to  an 
almost  dangerous  point  at  Alfoxden,  was  now  half 
dormant.  He  gave  up,  for  a  time,  his  researches  in 
psychology.     The    strain    of   political    excitement    was 

*  Professor  Knight  is  evidently  mistaken  in  saying — "  Life  of  Words- 
worth," I.  186 — that  the  Wordsworths  remained  at  Gottingen  for  about 
three  weeks  on  their  homeward  journey.  If  they  had  been  even  a  week 
at  Gottingen  in  April,  Clement  Carlyon  would  have  mentioned  the  fact, 
and  made  much  of  it. 

f  Carlyon's  "  Early  Years  and  Late  Reflections,"  I.  186. 

J  Considering  that  Coleridge  was  to  be  the  chief  introducer  of  German 
philosophy  to  the  English-speaking  world,  it  is  worth  observing  that 
before  going  to  Germany  he  knew  nothing  about  the  subject  at  first-hand. 
His  Notebook,  in  the  British  Museum,  for  the  years  1 795-1 798,  shows  that 
of  German  philosophers  he  knew  only  Jakob  Boehme,  and  him  through  a 
translation,  as  A.  Brandl  remarks  from  his  misspelling  of  the  name.  He 
also  mentions  a  translation  of  Lavater  ("  Secret  Journal  of  a  Self  Observer, 
or  Confessions  and  Letters  from  the  German  of  J.  C.  Lavater  ").  This 
translation,  by  Peter  Will,  had  been  published  in  1795.  See  A.  Brandl. 
"  S.  T.  Coleridge's  Notizbuch  aus  den  Jahren  1 795-1 798,  nach  der  Original- 
handschrift  im  Britischen  Museum,"  Braunschweig,  1896. 


1799]  CREATIVE  ACTIVITY  375 

relaxed.  Coleridge  was  not  with  him  to  stimulate 
speculation.  He  was  therefore  driven  to  live  upon  his 
memories.  He  wrote  that  winter  the  description  of 
skating  on  Esthwaite,  of  the  boy  hooting  to  the  owls 
across  Windermere,  of  nutting  near  Hawkshead. 
Passing  over  the  varied  experiences  of  the  past  twelve 
years,  he  thought  of  his  old  schoolmaster  and  composed 
the  lines  beginning  "  I  come,  ye  little  noisy  Crew," 
and  "  Matthew  "  and  "  The  Two  April  Mornings  " 
and  "  The  Fountain."  In  two  instances  he  followed 
methods  which  he  had  begun  to  cultivate  at  Alfoxden: 
he  composed  "  The  Danish  Boy,"  he  tells  us,  "  as  a 
prelude  to  a  ballad-poem  never  written,"  and  a  subtle, 
deeply  reflective  poem,  "  Ruth,"  likewise  in  ballad 
form.  The  latter  is  a  study  of  moral  evil,  prompted 
and  mitigated  by  the  influences  of  natural  beauty.  The 
subject  is  the  abandonment  of  an  innocent  woman  by 
her  husband,  a  man  of  genius  and  charm.  Wild  nature, 
amid  whose  glories  he  had  roved,  made  this  man  in- 
different to  human  feeling  and  to  moral  obligation. 
But  to  the  heart-broken  Ruth,  nature,  with  grand 
impartiality,  gave  solace  in  her  years  of  sorrow. 

It  is  a  curious  theme,  and  as  Wordsworthian  as  any 
detail  of  its  treatment.  Both  Wordsworth  and  Cole- 
ridge applied  themselves  more  than  once  to  the  study 
of  seduction.  The  latter  had  already  written  his  three 
poems  to  Unfortunate  Women — "  Pale  roamer  through 
the  night  !  thou  poor  Forlorn  !"  "  Maiden,  that  with 
sullen  brow,"  and  "  Myrtle-leaf  that,  ill  besped." 
There  are  many  points  of  similarity  between  Words- 
worth's two  poems,  "  The  Thorn  "  and  "  The  Mad 
Mother,"  written  in  1798,  and  "  Ruth,"  written  early  in 
1799,  the  most  obvious  being  that  in  all  of  them  the 
poet  shows  profound  sympathy  with  minds  disordered 
by  betrayal,  and  profound  knowledge,  too,  of  the  work- 
ings of  such  minds.  In  the  ruin  of  the  faculties  which 
once  adapted  these  poor  women  to  social  life,  they  have 
preserved,  he  shows  us,  a  healthful  relation  to  nature. 
Upon  nature  they  fall  back  for  consolation  when  hopes 
of  human  love  have  failed      Not  quite  the  same  subject, 


376  "  LYRICAL  BALLADS "  [chap,  xv 

but  one  very  much  like  it,  had  engaged  his  attention  in 
"  The  Ruined  Cottage."  This  is  also  true  of  "  The 
Borderers."  The  material  for  "  Vaudracour  and  Julia," 
although  it  may  not  have  received  substantial  form 
until  1805,  was  supplied  to  him  in  1792.  It,  again,  is  a 
tale  of  thwarted  love,  ending  in  separation  and  mad- 
ness. Wordsworth  rarely  trusted  himself  to  describe 
the  effects  of  the  passion  of  love.  He  knew  too  well 
the  intensity  of  his  own  nature,  and  feared  the  result  of 
any  slackening  of  self-control ;  and  of  minds  abnormal 
or  perverted,  or  threatened  at  least  with  insanity, 
he  had  known  only  too  many  among  his  nearest 
associates. 

At  Goslar  he  wrote  also  that  unique  ballad,  "  Lucy 
Gray."  It  was  founded,  he  informs  us,  on  a  circum- 
stance told  him  by  his  sister.  Nothing  could  surpass 
the  simplicity  and  naturalness  of  this  poem  before  the 
next  to  the  last  stanza  is  reached.  At  that  point  the 
suggestion  of  something  preternatural  is  made,  yet 
without  disturbing  the  sense  of  reality.  This  touch  is 
added  with  marvellous  delicacy.  The  poet  was  pre- 
pared to  make  it  by  those  studies  of  the  weird  which  he 
and  Coleridge  had  pursued  at  Alfoxden.  "  Lucy  Gray  " 
is  a  more  perfect  example  of  its  kind  than  any  other  of 
Wordsworth's  contributions  to  "  Lyrical  Ballads."  It  is 
absolutely  free  from  local  and  personal  associations.  It 
depends  little  upon  the  poet's  actual  experience.  His 
creative  energy  here,  for  the  first  time  perhaps,  worked 
through  a  medium  of  pure  imagination,  and  on  an 
impulse  purely  artistic. 

"  A  Poet's  Epitaph,"  dated  1799,  is  another  instance 
of  Wordsworth's  immense  and  rapidly  unfolding  versa- 
tility. The  first  half  of  this  piece  is  in  a  vein  of  high 
moral  satire — a  vein  not  previously  revealed  in  him;  a 
reader  who  came  upon  it  unawares  might  say,  "  This  is 
by  Burns  or  else  by  some  poet  born  two  or  three  genera- 
tions after  Burns."  On  the  other  hand,  the  five  stanzas 
beginning 

But  who  is  He,  with  modest  looks. 

which   describe  the  true  poet's  gifts   and   limitations, 


1799]  THE  "  LUCY  "  POEMS  377 

though  transcending  in  boldness  and  precision  any  lines 
previously  written  by  Wordsworth,  possess  qualities 
which  are  immediately  recognized  as  peculiar  to  him. 

The  five  so-called  "  Lucy  poems,"  which  Wordsworth 
stated  were  written  in  Germany,  fill  one  of  the  most 
entrancing  pages  in  our  literature.  Lovely  in  them- 
selves, they  gain  an  added  interest  from  the  questionings 
they  raise  in  the  mind  of  every  thoughtful  reader. 
Have  the  poems  all  one  subject  ?  WTas  Lucy  a  real 
person  or  a  creature  of  imagination  ?  Who  was  she  ? 
What  passion  and  what  pain  do  these  lines  half  confess 
and  half  conceal  ?  To  say  much  about  them  would  be 
to  desecrate  their  tender  and  exquisite  beauty.  No 
lover  of  poetry  would  wish  to  resolve  all  their  mystery. 
Yet  one  is  obliged  to  take  account  of  several  views 
which  have  been  held  in  regard  to  their  meaning.  The 
traditional  opinion  is  that  they  were  inspired  by  the 
poet's  love  for  his  sister.  When  we  recall  the  ecstatic 
language  in  which  she  more  than  once  voiced  her  yearn- 
ing for  him  in  absence,  and  how  her  solicitude  hovered 
over  him  and  lapped  him  in  tenderness  when  she  had 
regained  him,  we  must  admit  that  if  his  nature  was  like 
hers,  this  view  is  not  untenable.  As  we  have  seen,  it 
is  the  only  guess  that  Coleridge  could  make  when  he 
read  the  "  sublime  epitaph,"  "  A  slumber  did  my  spirit 
seal."  Another  view  is  that  this  Lucy  is  as  purely  an 
ideal  creation  as  the  child  in  his  ballad.  In  that  case, 
we  must  believe  these  poems  little  less  than  miracles. 
Taken  together,  they  are  unsurpassed' for  poignancy  of 
passion.  The  love  of  woman  never  inspired  utterance 
more  tenderly  reverent.  If  they  had  no  origin  in  per- 
sonal experience,  we  must  reckon  Wordsworth  among 
the  greatest  objective  or  dramatic  artists.  A  third  view 
is  the  only  one  which  an  unprejudiced  reading  of  the 
poems  alone  would  be  likely  to  suggest :  that  the  poet 
had  loved  and  lost.  From  every  indication,  of  feeling, 
of  musical  tone,  and  even  of  metrical  detail,  the  five 
pieces,  "  Strange  fits  of  passion  have  I  known,"  "  She 
dwelt  among  the  untrodden  ways,"  "I  travelled  among 
unknown   men,"  "  A  slumber  did   my  spirit  seal,"  and 


378  '  LYRICAL  BALLADS "  [chap,  xv 

"  Three  years  she  grew  in  sun  and  shower,"  appear  to 
have  one  and  the  same  subject.  And,  in  spite  of  Fen- 
wick  notes  and  all  other  external  testimony,  I  am  half 
convinced  that  the  two  pieces,  "  I  met  Louisa  in  the 
shade,"  and  "  Dear  Child  of  Nature,  let  them  rail," 
were  conceived  at  the  same  time  and  from  the  same 
impulse  as  "  Three  years  she  grew  in  sun  and  shower." 
All  attempts  to  look  more  closely  into  the  secret  have 
thus  far  been  made  in  vain.  Lucy  turned  her  wheel 
"  beside  an  English  fire  ";  the  "  springs  of  Dove  "  are 
in  Yorkshire :  yet  when  could  the  poet,  without  the 
knowledge  of  his  friends,  have  met  and  wooed,  except 
during  his  long  residence  in  France  ?  Brief  must  the 
vision  have  been,  brief  and  eternal  as  the  moment  in 
Dante's  life  where  incipit  Vita  Nova.  My  own  opinion 
is  that  an  actual  experience  of  love  and  sorrow,  quite 
definite  and  personal,  was  the  origin  of  these  poems, 
and  that  the  traits  of  a  real  woman,  her  loveliness, 
her  innocent  wildness,  were  fondly  recalled  under  the 
name  of  "  Lucy."  But  the  name,  I  believe,  and  the 
several  touches  of  local  detail,  have  slight  significance, 
if  any. 

When  Wordsworth  and  his  sister  passed  through 
Gottingen  in  April,  1 799,  they  had  been  more  than  seven 
months  abroad.  Their  experiences  had  not  been  alto- 
gether satisfactory.  Accustomed  to  the  soft  winters  of 
England,  they  had  suffered  much  from  cold,  and,  un- 
fortunately, did  not  wait  to  see  a  German  May  steal 
through  the  sweet  valleys  of  the  Harz.  There  is  no 
evidence  that  they  acquired  any  sympathetic  knowledge 
of  German  life  or  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the 
language.  They  lived  very  economically,  spending  far 
less  than  Coleridge.* 

It  has  been  averred  that  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge 

*  Professor  Knight — "  Life  of  Wordsworth,"  I.  187 — apparently  has  no 
warrant  for  stating  that  the  Wedgwoods  advanced  sums  to  Wordsworth. 
Coleridge,  of  course,  enjoyed  his  annuity  from  that  source,  and  both  the 
poets  received  their  money  from  the  Wedgwoods'  Hamburg  agents;  but 
on  Wordsworth's  part  it  was  probably  an  ordinary  business  transaction. 
See  Eliza  Meteyard's  "  A  Group  of  Englishmen,"  p.  98,  for  the  accounts 
transmitted  to  England  by  the  Hamburg  firm. 


1799]  RETURN  FROM  GERMANY  379 

returned  from  their  visit  to  the  Continent  cured  of  their 
democratic  tendencies.  To  dispel  this  idea  in  the  case 
of  Coleridge,  it  is  only  necessary  to  read  his  letters  to 
Poole  and  Southey  written  in  the  autumn  of  1799.  He 
is  amused  to  observe  the  reaction  among  his  acquaint- 
ances. Some  of  them  were  scampering  to  cover,  in 
most  undignified  haste.  Charles  Lloyd,  for  one,  went 
over  to  the  aristocrats,  and  Coleridge,  who,  to  be  sure, 
had  reason  to  distrust  him,  wrote  as  follows:* 

"  Soon  after  Lloyd's  arrival  at  Cambridge  I  under- 
stand Christopher  Wordsworth  wrote  his  uncle,  Mr. 
Cookson,  that  Lloyd  was  going  to  read  Greek  with  him. 
Cookson  wrote  back  recommending  caution,  and  whether 
or  no  an  intimacy  with  so  marked  a  character  might 
not  be  prejudicial  to  his  academical  interests.  (This  is 
his  usual  mild  manner.)  Christopher  Wordsworth  re- 
turned for  answer  that  Lloyd  was  by  no  means  a  demo- 
crat, and  as  a  proof  of  it,  transcribed  the  most  favour- 
able passages  from  the  '  Edmund  Oliver,'  and  here  the 
affair  ended." 

This  quotation  is  sufficient  to  show  why  Wordsworth, 
on  his  return,  avoided  his  own  family.  His  letters,  for 
the  rest  of  the  year,  reveal  none  of  his  convictions. 
They  have  to  do  chiefly  with  business  matters.  Miss 
Wordsworth,  in  her  letter,  already  mentioned,  to  Thomas 
Poole,  of  July  4,  gives  their  address  as  "  Mr.  Hutchin- 
son's, Sockburn,  near  Northallerton,  Yorkshire."  They 
are  undetermined,  she  says,  where  to  reside,  and  have 
no  house  in  view.  William  wishes  to  be  near  a  good 
library,  and,  if  possible,  in  a  pleasant  country.  She 
asks  Poole  to  let  them  know  if  he  hears  of  a  suitable 
place  in  his  neighbourhood. 

Wordsworth  wrote  anxiously  to  Cottle  about  the  sale 
of  "  Lyrical  Ballads."  His  first  letter,  undated,  was 
probably  written  late  in  May,  for  he  says,  "  We  left 

*  E.  II.  Coleridge's  "  Letters  of  S.  T.  Coleridge,"  I.  311.  Lloyd  had 
settled  at  Cambridge  in  the  autumn  of  1798.  "  Edmund  Oliver  "  was  a 
novel,  in  which  he  had  offensively  introduced  a  thinly  disguised  representa- 
tion of  Coleridge,  with  his  foibles  and  misfortunes.  There  is  evidence  in 
the  correspondence  between  Dorothy  Wordsworth  and  Mrs.  Clarkson  that 
Lloyd's  father  tried  to  secure  all  the  copies  of  it. 


380  "  LYRICAL  BALLADS "  [chap,  xv 

Coleridge  well  at  Gottingen  a  month  ago."  He  does  not 
know  that  Cottle  has  transferred  the  book  to  Arch. 
"  We  have  spent  our  time  pleasantly  enough  in  Ger- 
many," he  declares,  "  but  we  are  right  glad  to  find  our- 
selves in  England,  for  we  have  learned  to  know  its 
value." 

By  June  2  he  had  heard  from  Cottle,  and  expressed 
his  regret  at  having  lost  a  good  opportunity  of  con- 
necting himself  with  the  publisher  Johnson,  in  whose 
hands  the  poems  were  likely  to  have  had  a  quicker  sale. 
Cottle  was  going  out  of  business,  and  the  author  desired 
to  know  who  was  to  own  the  copyright.  He  was  in 
need  of  money,  and  asked  for  the  balance  due  to  him. 
In  a  letter  of  June  24,  he  makes  the  astounding  state- 
ment : 

"  From  what  I  can  gather  it  seems  that  The  Ancyent 
Marinere  has,  on  the  whole,  been  an  injury  to  the 
volume ;  I  mean  that  the  old  words  and  the  strangeness 
of  it  have  deterred  readers  from  going  on.  If  the 
volume  should  come  to  a  second  edition,  I  would  put 
in  its  place  some  little  things  which  would  be  more 
likely  to  suit  the  common  taste." 

Nothing  is  said  about  how  Coleridge  might  feel  if  this 
were  done.  One  cannot  imagine  the  author  of  the 
"  Ancient  Mariner  "  making  such  a  proposal  with  refer- 
ence to  the  "  Lines  Written  a  Few  Miles  above  Tintern 
Abbey  "  or  "  The  Idiot  Boy."  No  doubt  it  was  based 
upon  an  agreement  between  the  two  poets;  yet  one 
could  wish  for  a  more  generous  way  of  putting  things. 

"  Lyrical  Ballads  "  had  not  been  badly  received.  The 
challenge  of  its  Advertisement  had  fallen  almost  un- 
heard in  a  noisy  world.  There  were  few  to  remark  the 
truth  and  the  audacity  of  the  now  famous  declaration : 

"  The  majority  of  the  following  poems  are  to  be  con- 
sidered as  experiments.  They  were  written  chiefly  with 
a  view  to  ascertain  how  far  the  language  of  conversation 
in  the  middle  and  lower  classes  of  society  is  adapted  to 
the  purposes  of  poetic  pleasure.  Readers  accustomed 
to  the  gaudiness  and  inane  phraseology  of  many  modern 
writers,  if  they  persist  in  reading  this  book  to  its  con- 


i798]  A  MALICIOUS  REVIEW  381 

elusion,  will  perhaps  frequently  have  to  struggle  with 
feelings  of  strangeness  and  awkwardness :  they  will  look 
round  for  poetry,  and  will  be  induced  to  inquire  by  what 
species  of  courtesy  these  attempts  can  be  permitted  to 
assume  that  title." 

But  there  had  been  one  article,  which,  though  not  likely 
to  harm  the  fortunes  of  the  book,  was  manifestly  in- 
tended to  rebuke  the  authors.  It  appeared  in  The 
Critical  Review  for  October,  1798,  and  was  written  by 
Southey.  Its  appearance  so  soon  after  the  publication 
of  the  book  has  given  very  plausible  ground  to  the 
opinion  that  he  planned  his  attack  before  he  saw  it, 
and  he  has  even  been  charged  with  persuading  Cottle 
to  transfer  it  to  Arch,  in  order  not  to  include  the  former 
in  the  ruin  he  intended  to  make.  It  has  also  been  sug- 
gested that  he  thought  Coleridge  was  the  author  of  all 
the  poems.  His  review  was  certainly  neither  kind  nor 
fair.  He  had  had  many  an  opportunity  of  realizing  the 
inferiority  of  his  own  genius  to  that  of  either  one  of 
the  joint  authors.  Only  the  shallowest  self-conceit 
could  have  enabled  him  to  brush  aside  lightly  any 
poetic  theory  that  they  might  propound.  "  Of  these 
experimental  poems,  the  most  important,"  he  says,  "  is 
the  Idiot  Boy,  the  story  of  which  is  simply  this  " — and 
he  goes  on  to  anatomize  it.  It  is  easy  enough  to  raise 
a  laugh  over  the  "  story  "  of  this  poem,  and  over  some 
of  the  phrases  in  it,  that  are  so  simple  as  to  appear 
grotesque.  But  he  might  have  found  so  much  to  praise  I 
Instead  of  this,  after  quoting  some  of  the  most  "  child- 
ish "  stanzas,  he  magisterially  pronounces  his  verdict: 

"  No  tale  less  deserved  the  labour  that  appears  to 
have  been  bestowed  upon  this.  It  resembles  a  Flemish 
picture  in  the  worthlessness  of  its  design  and  the  excel- 
lence of  its  execution.  From  Flemish  artists  we  are 
satisfied  with  such  pieces :  who  would  not  have  lamented, 
if  Corregio  or  Rafaelle  had  wasted  their  talents  in 
painting  Dutch  boors  or  the  humours  of  a  Flemish 
wake  ?'7 

He  is  altogether  displeased  with  "  The  Thorn."  Of 
the    "  Ancient    Mariner  "    he    complains    that,    though 


382  "  LYRICAL  BALLADS  "  [chap,  xv 

many  of  the  stanzas  are  laboriously  beautiful,  they  are 
in  connection  absurd  or  unintelligible.  "  We  do  not," 
he  says,  "  sufficiently  understand  the  story  to  analyze 
it."  It  is  strange  that  a  man  with  any  claim  to  be  a 
poet  should  entertain  the  distressing  thought  of  analyz- 
ing the  "  Ancient  Mariner  ";  and  there  could  be  nothing 
more  inept  than  to  describe  it  as  "  a  Dutch  attempt  at 
German  sublimity."  Finally,  he  condescends  to  admit 
that  "  genius  has  here  been  employed  in  producing  a 
poem  of  little  merit."  Curiously  enough,  he  approves 
of  "  The  Female  Vagrant,"  and  he  gives  high  praise  to 
the  "  Lines  Written  above  Tintern  Abbey."  He  laments 
that  the  author  stooped  to  write  such  pieces  as  "  The 
Last  of  the  Flock,"  "  The  Convict,"  and  most  of  the 
ballads.  There  is  an  intolerable  air  of  superiority  in  his 
concluding  paragraph:  "  The  '  experiment,'  we  think, 
has  failed,  not  because  the  language  of  conversation  is 
little  adapted  to  '  the  purposes  of  poetic  pleasure,'  but 
because  it  has  been  tried  upon  uninteresting  subjects. 
Yet  every  piece  discovers  genius,  and  ill  as  the  author 
has  frequently  employed  his  talents,  they  certainly  rank 
him  with  the  best  of  living  poets." 

Charles  Lamb,  though  he  had  too  readily  sided  with 
Lloyd  in  his  quarrel  with  Coleridge,  was  disappointed 
with  Southey's  article.  He  thought  it  unappreciative, 
and  told  him  so:*  "  If  you  wrote  that  review  in  '  Crit. 
Rev.,'  I  am  sorry  you  are  so  sparing  of  praise  to  the 
'  Ancient  Marinere.'  "  He  also  declares  "  Tintern 
Abbey  "  one  of  the  finest  poems  ever  written. 

Wordsworth  felt  the  blow  more  deeply  than  he  would 
admit.  He  pretended  to  care  only  because  the  criti- 
cism must  affect  the  sale  of  the  book.  He  exclaims,  in 
a  letter  to  Cottle:  "  He  knew  that  I  published  those 
poems  for  money,  and  money  alone.  He  knew  that 
money  was  of  importance  to  me.  If  he  could  not  con- 
scientiously have  spoken  differently  of  the  volume,  he 
ought  to  have  declined  the  task  of  reviewing  it.' 

According  to  Cottle's  account,  Wordsworth  ascribed 
the   bad   sale  of  "  Lyrical   Ballads  "   to   two   causes — 

*   E.  V.  Lucas,  "  Works  of  Charles  and  Mary  Lamb,"  VI.  130. 


I799J  UNFAVOURABLE  RECEPTION  383 

"  first  the  '  Ancient  Mariner,'  which,  he  said,  no  one 
seemed  to  understand;  and,  secondly,  the  unfavourable 
notice  of  most  of  the  reviews."*  Considering  that  the 
authors  had  disposed  of  their  copyright,  we  might 
wonder  why  Wordsworth  should  be  so  anxious  about 
the  money  loss,  did  we  not  also  learn  from  Cottle  that 
the  latter  had  obtained  ownership  once  more  of  what 
was  regarded  as  a  worthless  property,  and  then  given  it 
to  Wordsworth,  "  so  that  whatever  advantage  has  arisen, 
subsequently,  from  the  sale  of  this  volume  of  the 
*  Lyrical  Ballads  '  .  .  .  has  pertained  exclusively  to  Mr. 
W."  Coleridge's  claims  cannot  have  been  overlooked 
by  either  Cottle  or  Wordsworth,  but  it  is  to  be  regretted 
that  the  latter  was  so  ready  to  attribute  the  "failure" 
to  Coleridge's  share  of  the  work. 

Mrs.  Coleridge,  reflecting,  no  doubt,  her  brother-in- 
law's  opinion,  wrote  to  Poole  from  Bristol,  in  March, 
1799:  "  The  Lyrical  Ballads  are  laughed  at  and  disliked 
by  all  with  very  few  exceptions  " ;  and  again,  on  April  2  : 
"  The  Lyrical  Ballads  are  not  liked  at  all  by  any."  She 
also  added,  in  a  queer  little  postscript:  "  It  is  very  un- 
pleasant to  me  to  be  often  asked  if  Coleridge  has  changed 
his  political  sentiments,  for  I  know  not  properly  how  to 
reply.     Pray  furnish  me."f 

The  little  book  was  noticed  at  some  length  in  The 
Monthly  Review  for  June,  1799,  and  on  the  whole  un- 
favourably. Wordsworth  did  not  see  this  article  until 
several  weeks  later,  but  he  heard  of  it.  The  anonymous 
writer  divided  his  blame  and  his  even  more  offensive 
condescension  equally  between  the  poems  by  Words- 
worth and  those  by  Coleridge.  He  supposed,  of  course, 
that  they  were  all  written  by  the  same  author.  He  sees 
in  their  natural  diction  only  an  imitation  of  an  ancient 
and  rude  style  of  ballad  verse.  In  their  spirit  he  detects 
a  dangerous  radicalism,  the  teaching  of  Rousseau.  The 
11  Rime  of  the  Ancient  Mariner  "  is  "  the  strangest  story 
of  a  cock  and  a  bull  that  we  ever  saw  on  paper."  "  The 
Yew-tree  "    seems    a    seat    for    Jean- Jacques.      "  The 

*   "  Reminiscences,"  p.  257. 

t   From  manuscript  letters  in  the  British  Museum. 


384  "  LYRICAL  BALLADS "  [chap,  xv 

Female  Vagrant  "  "  seems  to  stamp  a  general  stigma  on 
all  military  transactions,"  and  the  perception  of  this 
truth  sets  the  reviewer  off  on  a  defence  of  the  supposed 
necessity  of  militarism.  "  In  '  The  Dungeon,'  candour 
and  tenderness  for  criminals  seem  pushed  to  excess," 
and  with  a  Tory's  traditional  solicitude  for  low  "  rates," 
the  reviewer  inquires  :  "  Have  not  jails  been  built  on  the 
humane  Mr.  Howard's  plan,  which  have  almost  ruined 
some  counties,  and  which  look  more  like  palaces  than 
habitations  for  the  perpetrators  of  crimes  ?"  "  The 
Convict  "  shows  "  misplaced  commiseration,  on  one 
condemned  by  the  laws  of  his  country."  This  article, 
like  almost  everything  else  published  in  The  Monthly 
Review  in  the  last  decade  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
indicates  the  general  alertness  to  detect  and  crush  all 
manifestations  of  the  "  levelling  "  spirit.  One  cannot 
say  that  its  author  was  blind  to  the  merits  of  the  book, 
nor  indeed  that  he  was  mistaken  in  thinking  he  had 
discovered  one  of  the  chief  motives  of  its  composition. 
Why  did  not  Wordsworth  boldly  accept  the  challenge  ? 
Apart  from  the  supposition — for  which  we  have  up  to 
this  point  seen  no  evidence — that  his  political  philosophy 
had  already  begun  to  change  to  a  more  conservative 
type,  there  were  reasons  inherent  in  his  character. 
Wordsworth  was  not  one  of  those  men  who  enjoy  com- 
bat. Only  a  self-distrusting  or  excessively  prudent 
young  man  could  have  suppressed,  as  he  did,  the  Letter 
to  the  Bishop  of  Llandaff.  The  manifold  impressions 
made  upon  him  by  his  close  view  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion he  kept  to  himself  for  many  years,  and  the  recep- 
tion of  "  Lyrical  Ballads,"  which  was,  after  all,  only 
what  might  have  been  expected,  made  him  write  timor- 
ously to  Cottle:  "My  aversion  from  publication  in- 
creases every  day,  so  much  so,  that  no  motives  what- 
ever, nothing  but  pecuniary  necessity,  will,  I  think,  ever 
prevail  upon  me  to  commit  myself  to  the  press  again/' 


CHAPTER  XVI 

GRASMERE  AND  THE  LAKES 

The  reader  may  have  been  struck  more  than  once  in 
this  recital  with  the  long  visits  Wordsworth  made  at 
the  houses  of  his  friends.  There  must  have  been  some- 
thing peculiarly  engaging  in  his  person  and  his  con- 
versation, or  he  would  not  have  been  so  often  invited 
to  spend  weeks  and  even  months  with  people  upon 
whom  he  had  no  claim  of  kinship.  His  needs  were 
simple,  his  habits  accommodating,  and  he  spent  much 
of  his  time  out  of  doors.  We  have  also  to  remember 
that  the  eighteenth  century  was  more  leisurely  than  our 
own  time,  and  that,  owing  to  the  lack  of  facilities  for 
rapid  travel,  well-to-do  families  living  at  a  distance  from 
great  centres  might  often  say  with  truth  that  the  ad- 
vantage of  entertaining  was  theirs.  Guests  broke  the 
monotony,  and  gave  young  men  and  women  a  chance 
to  see  someone  besides  their  own  relatives.  The  Hutch- 
insons,  with  whom  William  and  Dorothy  Wordsworth 
made  their  home  for  nearly  eight  months  in  1799,  at 
Sockburn,  were  certainly  not  more  than  well-to-do,  and 
it  is  quite  possible  that  the  guests,  in  this  case,  paid  for 
board  and  lodging.  The  family  consisted  of  three 
brothers — Henry,  a  sailor;  Thomas,  a  farmer,  about 
twenty-six  years  old ;  and  George — and  three  sisters — 
Mary,  Sarah,  and  Joanna,  aged  respectively  twenty- 
eight,  twenty-four,  and  nineteen.  They  had  spent  part 
of  their  childhood  at  Penrith,  where  the  acquaintance 
with  the  Wordsworths  had  begun.  Thomas,  at  the  age 
of  sixteen,  had  inherited  the  stock  on  a  farm  at  Sock- 
burn,  which  is  in  the  county  of  Durham,  near  the  border 
of  Yorkshire,  about  seven  miles  south  of  Darlington. 
1.  38s  25 


386  GRASMERE  AND  THE  LAKES     [chap,  xvt 

He  now  rented  this  farm,  and  his  sisters  lived  with  him 
there.  It  was  a  pleasant  place,  on  the  banks  of  the 
River  Tees.  The  young  people  were  nearly  of  an  age. 
They  had  known  one  another  from  childhood.  Mary 
Hutchinson,  as  we  have  seen,  had  gone  to  visit  Dorothy 
Wordsworth  at  Racedown — a  long  and  tedious  journey. 
There  are  few  traces  in  his  poems  of  Wordsworth's 
life  at  Sockburn.  Nearly  all  the  short  pieces  which  he 
dated  1799  were  composed  before  he  left  Germany. 
The  Bishop  of  Lincoln  quotes  twro  letters  from  Cole- 
ridge,* which  show  that  Wordsworth  had  already  com- 
municated to  his  friend  the  great  plan  which  now  filled 
his  mind.  Coleridge  was  to  be  addressed  in  a  poem. 
But  there  was  to  be  another  and  greater  poem,  a  life- 
work,  a  masterpiece,  and  with  characteristic  self-forget- 
fulness,  he  entreats  Wordsworth  to  attend  chiefly  to  this 
task.  The  first  of  these  letters  is  of  the  utmost  impor- 
tance, as  being  perhaps  the  seed  from  which  grew  more 
than  one  book  of  "  The  Excursion,"  and  as  defining 
Coleridge's  state  of  mind,  and  perhaps  Wordsworth's 
too,  with  reference  to  what  we  may  term  the  Revolu- 
tionary faith.  This  letter  is  said  to  have  been  addressed 
to  Wordsworth  in  the  summer  of  1799.     It  says: 

"  My  dear  Friend, — I  do  entreat  you  to  go  on  with 
'  The  Recluse  ';  and  I  wish  you  would  write  a  poem  in 
blank  verse,  addressed  to  those,  who,  in  consequence  of 
the  complete  failure  of  the  French  Revolution,  have 
thrown  up  all  hopes  of  the  amelioration  of  mankind, 
and  are  sinking  into  an  almost  epicurean  selfishness, 
disguising  the  same  under  the  soft  titles  of  domestic 
attachment  and  contempt  for  visionary  philosophes. 
It  would  do  great  good,  and  might  form  a  part  of  '  The 
Recluse,'  for  in  my  present  mood  I  am  wholly  against 
the  publication  of  any  small  poems." 

This  is  not  the  language  of  a  man  who  has  himself 
given  up  striving  for  his  old  ideals,  and  we  know  what 

*  "  Memoirs,"  I.  159.  There  is,  besides,  a  letter  from  Coleridge  to 
Poole,  in  the  British  Museum,  written  at  Exeter,  September  10,  1799,  in 
which  Coleridge  says:  "  I  have  heard  from  W.  Wordsworth.  He  is  ill, 
and  seems  not  happy.  Montague  has  played  the  fool,  I  expect,  with  him 
in  pecuniary  affairs.     He  renounces  Alfoxden  altogether." 


1799]  COLERIDGE  URGENT  387 

they  were.  And  this  we  may  hold,  notwithstanding  a 
manuscript  Discourse  by  Coleridge,  now  in  the  British 
Museum,  in  which  he  criticizes  the  Godvvinian  theories, 
though  without  naming  their  author.  He  denounces 
naked  reason  and  exalts  the  affections,  and  speaks  of 
"  infidelity  and  its  almost  inseparable  concomitant,  re- 
laxation of  domestic  ties,"  quite  in  the  vein  of  pulpit 
thunderers.  But  the  real  nature  of  the  discourse  is 
shown  by  the  superscription:  "  Written  for  whom  I 
neither  know  or  care,  as  a  College  Commemoration 
Sermon,  Oct.  6,  1799."  It  was  evidently  composed  for 
sale  to  some  not  very  scrupulous  clergyman.  Under 
date  of  October  8,  1799,  at  Stowey,  the  ingenious  author 
has  added,  below  the  title,  that  though  one  side  is  "  all 
too  hugely  beangel'd,  the  other  all  too  desperately 
bedevil'd,  yet  spite  of  the  flattery  and  spite  of  the 
caricature,  both  are  likenesses." 

In  the  second  letter,  dated  October  12,  Coleridge  says : 

"  I  long  to  see  what  you  have  been  doing.  O  let  it 
be  the  tail-piece  of  '  The  Recluse  !'  for  of  nothing  but 
'  The  Recluse  '  can  I  hear  patiently.  That  it  is  to  be 
addressed  to  me  makes  me  more  desirous  that  it  should 
not  be  a  poem  of  itself.  To  be  addressed,  as  a  beloved 
man,  by  a  thinker,  at  the  close  of  such  a  poem  as  '  The 
Recluse,'  a  poem  non  unius  populi,  is  the  only  event,  I 
believe,  capable  of  inciting  in  me  an  hour's  vanity — 
vanity,  nay,  it  is  too  good  a  feeling  to  be  so  called;  it 
would  indeed  be  a  self-elevation  produced  ab  extra." 

Coleridge  had  evidently  not  yet  seen  even  the  be- 
ginning of  "  The  Prelude,"  and  thought  of  it  as  a  slight 
undertaking  compared  with  "  The  Recluse  " — as  a  sor. 
of  dedication  to  himself  of  that  larger  work.  Words- 
worth, we  may  suppose  from  these  incitements,  was 
going  on  with  the  task  he  had  begun  to  plan  in  Ger- 
many, writing  "  The  Prelude,"  and  looking  ahead  to 
what  afterwards  he  called  "  The  Excursion." 

In  a  letter  dated  September  2*  he  invited  Cottle  to 
join  him  in  the  north,  and  accompany  him  on  a  tour, 
which  was  to  include  the  curiosities  in  the  neighbour- 

*  Cottle'b  "  Kcmnubtcuccb,"  p.  .$&;  "  Memoirs,"  I.  148. 


388  GRASMERE  AND  THE  LAKES    [chap,  xvi 

hood  of  Sockburn,  and  then  Cumberland  and  Westmor- 
land. By  curiosities  he  means  natural  objects  of  in- 
terest. As  at  Orleans  what  he  thought  most  worthy  of 
record  was  a  bubbling  spring,  so  here,  he  cared  more  for 
waterfalls,  gorges,  peaks,  and  dales,  than  for  the  works 
of  man.  Coleridge  had  come  back  from  Germany  in 
July,  and  the  visit  was  deferred  until  he  could  be  of  the 
party.  He  was  in  poor  health,  suffering  terribly  from 
rheumatism,  sleeplessness,  and  indigestion,  and  prob- 
ably aggravating  these  evils  with  opium.*  The  problem 
of  supporting  his  family  was  crying  for  solution.  He 
naturally  went  first  to  Stowey,  not  only  to  comfort  his 
wife,  but  to  receive  comfort  himself  from  the  ever- 
helpful  Poole.  Here  he  and  Southey  patched  up  their 
broken  friendship.  Towards  the  end  of  August  the 
Coleridges  went  to  Ottery  St.  Mary,  where  old  Mrs. 
Coleridge  and  her  son  George,  a  clergyman,  were  living. 
In  October  Coleridge  turned  up  in  Bristol,  and  induced 
Cottle  to  accompany  him  to  the  north  to  see  Words- 
worth. Anxious  though  he  was  to  be  known  to  pos- 
terity as  a  friend  and  patron  of  the  great  poets,  and  a 
source  of  knowledge  about  their  lives,  Cottle  has  caused 
endless  confusion  by  his  inaccuracy,  sometimes  appar- 
ently wilful.  The  exact  date  of  this  journey  cannot  be 
determined  from  anything  he  has  written,  and  I  sur- 
mise, from  the  brevity  of  his  account  at  this  point,  that 
he  was  not  treated  with  as  much  deference  as  he  thought 
he  deserved.  Coleridge  had  not  left  Stowey  on  Oc- 
tober 1 5  ."f- 

In  an  undated  letter  from  Wordsworth  to  his  sister, 
we  have  a  summary  account  of  the  journey  taken  by  the 
three  young  men.     Cottle  dropped  out  at  Greta  Bridge, 

*  Campbell's  "  Life  of  Coleridge,"  p.  104. 

f  "  Letters  of  S.  T.  Coleridge,"  edited  by  E.  H.  Coleridge,  p.  307. 
J.  Dykes  Campbell,  in  his  "  Life  of  Coleridge,"  p.  105,  says:  "  He  had 
received  alarming  accounts  of  Wordsworth's  health,  and  on  the  26th 
October,  in  company  with  Cottle,  he  arrived  at  Sockburn,  where  the 
Wordsworths  were  residing  with  their  old  friend  Tom  Hutchinson.  For- 
tunately, the  cause  of  alarm  had  passed  away,  and  almost  immediately 
the  three  visitors  started  on  a  tour  of  the  Lake  country."  He  refers  to 
Cottle's  "  Reminiscences  "  as  his  source,  but  I  cannot  find  the  passage  in 
that  chaos  of  a  book. 


1799]  A  PRELIMINARY  TOUR  389 

before  they  were  fairly  started.  John  Wordsworth  took 
his  place,  at' Temple  Sowerby.  The  party  then,  enter- 
ing the  Lake  country  at  Bampton,  proceeded  along 
Hawes  Water,  and  crossed  the  mountains  to  Winder- 
mere, by  way  of  Long  Sleddale  and  Troutbeck.  They 
went  over  to  Hawkshead.  The  brothers  noticed  great 
changes  among  the  people  since  they  had  left  the  region. 
It  was  Coleridge's  first  visit.  Next  day  they  went 
through  Rydal  to  Grasmere,  where  they  remained  a  few 
days.  John  left  them  almost  immediately.  They 
climbed  with  him  to  the  top  of  Grisedale  Pass,  and  said 
farewell  in  sight  of  Ullswater.  "  Coleridge,"  says  Wil- 
liam, "  was  much  struck  with  Grasmere  and  its  neigh- 
bourhood. I  have  much  to  say  to  you.  You  will  think 
my  plan  a  mad  one,  but  I  have  thought  of  building  a 
house  there  by  the  lake  side.  John  will  give  me  £40  to 
buy  the  ground.  There  is  a  small  house  at  Grasmere 
empty,  which,  perhaps,  we  may  take;  but  of  this  we 
will  speak."*  The  two  poets  lingered  in  these  lovely 
places  until  November  15  at  least. f 

On  the  10th,  writing  to  Southey  from  Keswick,  Cole- 
ridge says:  "  I  was  called  up  to  the  North  by  alarming 
accounts  of  Wordsworth's  health,  which,  thank  God  ! 
are  but  little  more  than  alarms."  He  states  further 
that  he  intends  to  return  thence  to  London,  having 
received  by  accident,  in  the  Lake  country,  "  a  sort  of 
offer  of  an  agreeable  kind,"  which  will  enable  him  and 
his  wife  to  live  in  London  four  or  five  months.  This 
was  a  proposal  from  Daniel  Stuart  to  write  political 
articles  for  The  Morning  Post.  He  first  returned,  how- 
ever, to  Sockburn,  and  went  thence  by  coach  to  London, 
arriving  November  2 7. J 

Wordsworth  seems  to  have  remained  longer  in  the 
Lake  country,  for,  writing  to  Coleridge  several  weeks 
later,  he  says  :§  "  I  arrived  at  Sockburn  the  day  after 
you  quitted  it.     I  scarcely  know  whether  to  be  sorry  or 

*   "  Memoirs,"  I.  150.     There  is  no  indication  to  whom  the  letter  was 
written. 

f  Campbell's  "  Life  of  Coleridge,"  p.  312,  footnote.  ♦   Ibid.,  105. 

§  "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,"  III.  445. 


39Q  GRASMERE  AND  THE  LAKES    [chap.xvi 

not  that  you  were  no  longer  there,  as  it  would  have  been 
a  great  pain  to  me  to  have  parted  with  you.  I  was 
sadly  disappointed  in  not  finding  Dorothy.  Mary  was 
a  solitary  housekeeper  and  overjoyed  to  see  me." 

Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  spent  nearly  a  month  to- 
gether, on  this  tour,  in  the  closest  intercourse,  renewing 
their  old  love  and  rekindling  the  flame  of  poetic  inspira- 
tion, which,  in  Wordsworth's  case  at  least,  was  soon  to 
glow  more  brightly  than  ever.  It  was  one  more  of  those 
epochs  in  his  life,  like  the  old  Alfoxden  days,  when  his 
heart  grew  strong  with  faith  in  his  own  powers,  and  his 
mind  opened  to  fresh  influences.  He  was  subject  to 
great  physical  and  mental  depression ;  composition  ex- 
hausted him;  the  physical  act  of  writing  made  him  ill; 
if  left  long  to  himself,  he  doubted  his  own  powers. 
Many  of  the  poems  he  composed  during  that  lonely 
winter  in  Germany  have  a  strange  inwardness,  approach- 
ing melancholy.  On  his  return  he  betrayed  undue  con- 
cern about  the  success  of  "  Lyrical  Ballads,"  amounting 
almost  to  petulance.  There  is  evidence  that  he  was  dis- 
tressed for  want  of  money.  Basil  Montagu  appears  to 
have  been  remiss  in  paying  for  his  son's  expenses. 

All  these  clouds  were  blown  away  when  Coleridge 
burst  upon  him  like  a  riotous  wind.  His  courage  re- 
vived. He  took  a  larger  view  of  his  future  tasks 
When  alone  with  Dorothy,  he  observed  and  penetrated 
the  minute  particulars  of  nature.  With  Coleridge  to 
stimulate  his  synthetic  powers,  he  saw  things  in  their 
connection  with  one  another.  Even  had  it  not  been 
Coleridge,  with  his  iridescent  imagination,  but  only 
some  ordinary  disciple  of  Kant,  the  contact  would  have 
been  invigorating,  for  analysis  had  gone  to  an  almost 
perilous  length,  and  the  time  had  come  when  a  fresh 
speculative  impulse  was  needed,  a  fresh  impulse  to  syn- 
thesize, to  view  nature  and  mind  under  the  aspect  of 
their  eternal  coexistence. 

It  must  have  given  him  great  satisfaction  to  draw 
together  so  many  of  the  best  influences  of  his  past  life. 
First  there  was  the  group  at  Sockburn;  then,  with  his 
best  friend  at  his  side,  he  listened  once  more  to  the 


i799]  LEAVING  SOCKBURN  391 

voices  of  the  hills.  Coleridge,  too,  heard  these  voices 
with  a  sympathetic  ear.  He  wrote  to  Dorothy  from 
Keswick : 

"  You  can  feel,  what  I  cannot  express  for  myself,  how 
deeply  I  have  been  impressed  by  a  world  of  scenery 
absolutely  new  to  me.  At  Rydal  and  Grasmere  I 
received,  I  think,  the  deepest  delight;  yet  Haweswater, 
through  many  a  varying  view,  kept  my  eyes  dim  with 
tears;  and,  the  evening  approaching,  Derwent-water  in 
diversity  of  harmonious  features,  in  the  majesty  of  its 
beauties,  and  in  the  beauty  of  its  majesty  .  .  .  and  the 
black  crags  close  under  the  snowy  mountains,  whose 
snows  were  pinkish  with  the  setting  sun,  and  the  reflec- 
tions from  the  rich  clouds  that  floated  over  some  and 
rested  upon  others  !— it  was  to  me  a  vision  of  a  fair 
country :  why  were  you  not  with  us  ?" 

And  of  John  Wordsworth,  the  sailor  brother,  he 
wrote:  "  Your  brother  John  is  one  of  you;  a  man  who 
hath  solitary  usings  of  his  own  intellect,  deep  in  feeling, 
with  a  subtle  tact,  a  swift  instinct  of  truth  and  beauty: 
he  interests  me  much."* 

Having  made  the  happy  choice  of  a  home  at  Grasmere, 
Wordsworth  and  his  sister  remained  only  about  three 
weeks  longer  at  Sockburn.  They  set  out  for  their  new 
abode  on  December  17,  and  reached  Grasmere  on  the 
20th,  sleeping  on  the  way  at  Askrigg,  Sedbergh,  and 
Kendal. f  Starting  early  in  the  morning,  and  crossing 
the  Tees  in  the  Sockburn  fields  by  moonlight,  they 
travelled  as  far  as  Wensley  Dale  on  horseback,  Dorothy 
mounted  "  behind  George."  They  rode  ten  miles  to  the 
River  Swale,  four  more  to  Richmond,  and  eight  more 
into  Wensley  Dale,  where  they  parted  from  their  friends 
with  sorrowful  hearts.     Thence  they  proceeded  on  foot 

*   "  Memoirs  of  Wordsworth,"  I.  149. 

I  See  the  letter  from  Wordsworth  to  Coleridge,  dated  Christmas  Eve, 
Grasmere,  printed  in  "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,"  III.  445. 
together  with  the  note  supplied  by  Mr.  Gordon  Wordsworth.  What  the 
Bishop  of  Lincoln  printed  in  the  "  Memoirs  "  and  Professor  Knight  in  his 
"  Life  of  Wordsworth,"  and  also  in  the  first  appendix  to  "  Letters  of  the 
Wordsworth  Family,"  was  taken  from  a  rough  draft,  and  not  correctly 
copied.  But  there  are  some  details  in  the  draft  which  have  not  beep 
reproduced  in  the  letter. 


392  GRASMERE  AND  THE  LAKES    [chap,  xvr 

to  Askrigg,  twelve  miles,  which  they  reached  before  six 
o'clock  in  the  evening.  The  rough,  frozen  roads  hurt 
their  feet,  but  the  keen  air  refreshed  their  spirits,  and 
they  were  able  to  walk  twenty-one  miles  next  day,  with 
the  help  of  a  "  lift  "  in  a  cart.  Notwithstanding  a 
furious  wind  and  snow,  they  turned  aside  to  see  several 
waterfalls.  From  Askrigg  to  Sedbergh  they  flew  before 
the  gale  at  a  rapid  pace.  Next  morning  they  climbed 
uphill  and  down,  eleven  miles,  to  Kendal,  where  they 
spent  the  afternoon  buying  and  ordering  furniture.  On 
the  fourth  day,  in  a  post-chaise,  they  proceeded  less 
lightly  to  Grasmere.  In  the  fragment  of  "  The  Re- 
cluse," written  a  year  or  two  later,  the  poet  thus  de- 
scribes the  arrival : 

Bleak  season  was  it,  turbulent  and  bleak, 

When  hitherward  we  journeyed,  side  by  side, 

Through  bursts  of  sunshine  and  through  flying  showers, 

Paced  the  long  Vales — how  long  they  were — and  yet 

How  fast  that  length  of  way  was  left  behind, 

Wensley's  rich  Vale  and  Sedbergh 's  naked  heights. 

The  frosty  wind,  as  if  to  make  amends 

For  its  keen  breath,  was  aiding  to  our  steps. 

And  drove  us  onward  like  two  ships  at  sea, 

Or  like  two  birds,  companions  in  mid  air, 

Parted  and  reunited  by  the  blast. 

Stern  was  the  face  of  Nature.     We  rejoiced 

In  that  stern  countenance,  for  our  souls  thence  drew 

A  feeling  of  their  strength.     The  naked  trees, 

The  icy  brooks,  as  on  we  passed,  appeared 

To  question  us.     "  Whence  come  ye  ?  to  what  end  ?" 

They  seemed  to  say;  "  What  would  ye,"  said  the  shower, 

"  Wild  wanderers,  whither  through  my  dark  domain  ?" 

The  sunbeams  said,  "  be  happy."     When  this  Vale 

We  entered,  bright  and  solemn  was  the  sky 

That  faced  us  with  a  passionate  welcoming, 

And  led  us  to  our  threshold. 

Travel-stained  and  footsore,  but  full  of  joy  at  the  new 
prospect  opening  before  them,  this  young  man  and  this 
young  woman,  whether  they  realized  it  or  not,  were 
come  at  last  to  the  haven  where  they  would  be.  At 
Grasmere  and  in  its  neighbourhood  they  were  to  spend 
the  rest  of  their   days.     Henceforth  they  were  never- 


1799]  IN  THE  HAVEN  393 

more  to  be  separated.  Here,  in  perfect  union  of  effort, 
they  were  to  live  according  to  their  ideal.  Peace,  con- 
tentment, unforced  and  fruitful  labour,  were  to  be  their 
portion.  Their  lives  up  to  this  point  had  not  been  un- 
fortunate, but  they  had  suffered  much  anxiety,  and 
William,  at  least,  was  one  of  those  who  bore  the  burden 
of  the  century  at  heart.  They  had  wandered  far,  in 
body  and  in  spirit,  and  not  the  least  of  their  new  ad- 
vantages was  being  at  home  again  among  their  native 
hills.  Their  genius  dedicated  them  peculiarly  to  the 
study  and  love  of  nature.  That  "  thrifty  goddess  " 
reveals  herself  at  her  own  chosen  moments,  and  must 
be  waited  for  and  waylaid.  Restless  and  wandering 
lovers  miss  her  disclosures.  At  Grasmere,  William  and 
Dorothy  Wordsworth  could  at  once  begin  again  the  life 
of  observation  and  emotion  which  in  his  case  at  least 
had  been  so  full  during  childhood  and  youth.  They 
were  within  one  long  day's  walk  of  Cockermouth,  where 
they  were  born,  and  at  an  equal  distance  from  Penrith. 
An  easy  ramble  of  three  hours  would  bring  them  to 
Hawkshead.  The  familiar  rustic  speech  of  the  north- 
west would  be  heard  again,  made  noticeable  and  yet 
endeared  by  absence.  The  local  types  of  face  and  figure, 
local  customs,  local  traditions,  would  stir  the  heart  with 
tender  memories,  and  at  the  same  time  yield  fresh 
meaning,  after  years  spent  elsewhere.* 

The  house  that  Wordsworth  had  rented  was  a  small 
stone-and-plaster  cottage  several  hundred  feet  back 
from  the  north-east  shore  of  Grasmere  Lake.f  It  had 
an  unobstructed  view  of  the  water,  and  of  Silver  How 
and  Loughrigg  Fell  beyond.  Before  it  ran  the  old  road 
that  connected  Grasmere  village  and  Ambleside.     Im- 

*  Tn  a  letter  to  Poole,  preserved  in  the  British  Museum,  Coleridge  about 
this  time  says:  "  I  would  to  God  I  could  get  Wordsworth  to  retake  Alfox- 
den.  The  society  of  so  great  a  being  is  of  priceless  value ;  but  he  will  never 
quit  the  North  of  England.  His  habits  are  more  assimilated  with  the 
inhabitants  there;  there  he  and  his  sister  are  exceedingly  beloved,  enthusi- 
astically. Such  differences  do  small  sympathies  make,  such  as  voice, 
pronunciation,  etc." 

•f  According  to  manuscript  note  by  Dr.  Joseph  Hunter,  in  the-  Briti-'i 
Museum,  the  rental  was  £8  a  year. 


394  GRASMERE  AND  THE  LAKES    ;chap.xvi 

mediately  behind  it  rose  the  first  slopes  of  Rydal  Fell, 
which  is  a  spur  of  mighty  Fairfield.  Along  the  margin 
of  the  lake,  on  the  one  hand,  extended  a  large  grove  of 
oak-trees ;  on  the  other,  a  few  level  enclosures  of  meadow- 
land  stretched  for  somewhat  less  than  half  a  mile  to 
the  ancient  church  and  the  first  dwellings  of  the  village. 
The  cottage  was  rough-cast  with  white  lime,  and  gleamed 
hospitably  upon  the  sight  of  a  traveller  approaching  it 
from  Kendal  and  Windermere.  It  had  formerly  been 
an  inn,  The  Dove  and  Olive  Branch,*  and  is  now  known 
as  Dove  Cottage.  The  Wordsworths,  however,  spoke 
of  it  for  some  years  as  Town-end,  which  was  the  local 
name.  It  was  even  smaller  than  at  present.  De 
Quincey  describes  the  interior  as  he  saw  it  in  1 807 : 

"  A  little  semi-vestibule  between  two  doors  prefaced 
the  entrance  into  what  might  be  considered  the  prin- 
cipal room  of  the  cottage.  It  was  an  oblong  square, 
not  above  eight  and  a  half  feet  high,  sixteen  long,  and 
twelve  broad ;  very  prettily  wainscoted  from  the  floor 
to  the  ceiling  with  dark  polished  oak,  slightly  embellished 
with  carving.  One  window  there  was — a  perfect  and 
unpretending  cottage  window,  with  little  diamond  panes, 
embowered  at  almost  every  season  of  the  year  with 
roses,  and  in  the  summer  and  autumn  with  a  profusion 
of  jasmine  and  other  fragrant  shrubs.  ...  I  was 
ushered  up  a  little  flight  of  stairs,  fourteen  in  all,  to  a 
little  drawing-room,  or  whatever  the  reader  chooses  to 
call  it.  Wordsworth  himself  has  described  the  fire- 
place of  this  room  as  his 

Half-kitchen  and  half-parlour  fire. 

It  was  not  fully  seven  feet  six  inches  high,  and,  in 
other  respects,  pretty  nearly  of  the  same  dimensions 
as  the  rustic  hall  below.  There  was,  however,  in  a 
small  recess,  a  library  of  perhaps  three  hundred  volumes, 
which  seemed  to  consecrate  the  room  as  the  poet's 
study  and  composing  room;  and  such  occasionallv  it 
was/'f 

Besides  these  two  fair-sized  rooms,  which  looked  to- 
wards the  highway  and  the  lake,  there  were,  on  the 

*  See  Wordsworth's  poem,  "  The  Waggoner." 
I   "  Autobiography,"  chap.  hi. 


T7Q9]  TOWN  END  395 

ground-floor,  a  bedroom  and  a  little  dark  kitchen  or 
laundry,  and  on  the  upper  floor  one  or  two  bedrooms, 
and  a  diminutive  study  or  sitting-room.  There  were  a 
few  feet  of  ground  in  front,  between  the  cottage  and  the 
road.  At  the  back  was  a  steep  little  orchard.  Between 
its  piled  rocks  a  few  apple-trees  shaded  a  tiny  spring. 
Shrubs  and  flowers  growing  at  the  higher  end  of  the 
orchard  laughed  in  at  the  upper  windows  of  the  cottage, 
so  small  was  the  space  and  so  sharp  the  pitch  of  the 
ground.  Beyond  the  back  wall  rose  the  mountain, 
and  one  might  continue  in  a  straight  line  for  half  a  day 
without  encountering  any  other  habitation.  For  those 
who  have  never  been  in  the  Lake  country,  it  may  not  be 
amiss  to  say  that  the  valleys  are  very  small,  seldom 
more  than  a  few  fields  across,  and  carefully  cultivated, 
while  the  mountains  that  divide  them  are  high  in  com- 
parison, their  lower  slopes  often  richly  wooded,  their 
upper  flanks  generally  bare  of  trees,  and  covered  with 
close  elastic  turf,  while  their  summits  are  composed  of 
jagged  rocks.  More  than  a  score  of  lovely  lakes  and 
romantic  tarns  lie  bosomed  in  the  vales  or  set  like  jewels 
among  the  hills.  The  entire  region  is  so  small  that  from 
Grasmere  as  a  centre  a  good  walker  can  reach  any  point 
on  its  circumference  in  a  day.  Yet  it  is  so  diversified 
and  so  full  of  exquisite  detail,  that  a  lifetime  would  not 
suffice  to  acquaint  a  person  with  all  its  natural  beauties. 
These  are  in  no  small  measure  due  to  the  enormous 
rainfall,  which  keeps  the  water-courses  shouting  all  the 
year  round,  and  causes  grass  and  moss  to  clothe  every 
rock  and  tree-trunk  with  verdure. 

The  influx  of  tourists  had  just  begun,  and  was  not  very 
large.  Only  a  small  part  of  the  population  was  as  yet 
composed  of  wealthy  retired  families.  Grasmere  itself 
was  a  scattered  group  of  humble  cottages.  There  were 
almost  none  beside  the  lake  except  Wordsworth's.  In 
deeper  seclusion  in  the  valley  heads,  such  as  Easedale 
and  Langdale,  folk  still  lived  oblivious  of  the  outer 
world,  preserving  ancient  manners  and  forms  of  speech. 
On  all  the  long  stretch  of  road,  seventeen  miles  or  so, 
between  Ambleside  and  Keswick,  there  appear  to  have 


396  GRASMERE  AND  THE  LAKES    [chap,  xvi 

been  at  first  only  two  or  three  households  with  whom 
the  new-comers  could  associate  on  something  like  an 
equal  footing  as  respects  education.  But  they  probably 
did  not  consider  this  a  drawback.  The  dalesmen  were 
a  respectable,  intelligent,  neighbourly  race;  the  state  of 
society  was  wholesome;  there  were  other  planes  of  inter- 
course no  less  inviting  than  those  afforded  by  learning 
and  polite  convention. 

At  first  the  new  inhabitants  of  Town-end,  or  Dove 
Cottage,  probably  lived  more  simply  than  even  they 
had  ever  done  before.  They  had  few  possessions;  it 
was  no  easy  matter  to  go  to  Kendal  or  Penrith  for  sup- 
plies; of  money  they  had  at  this  juncture  almost  none. 
Yet  on  Christmas  Eve  Wordsworth  sat  down,  in  a  most 
cheerful  frame  of  mind,  and  wrote  a  long  letter  to  Cole- 
ridge. The  house,  he  said,  was  almost  empty,  but  they 
hoped  to  make  it  comfortable.  They  had  caught  colds, 
to  be  sure,  and  the  chimneys  drew  badly,  but  there  was 
compensation  in  planning  for  next  spring.  His  sister 
was  especially  pleased  with  the  orchard:  "  In  imagina- 
tion she  has  already  built  a  seat,  with  a  summer  shed, 
on  the  highest  platform  in  this  our  little  domestic  slip 
of  mountain.  The  spot  commands  a  view,  over  our 
house,  of  the  lake,  the  church,  Helmcrag,  and  two- 
thirds  of  the  vale."  He  intends  to  enclose  the  two  or 
three  j^ards  of  ground  between  the  house  and  the  road, 
and  to  plant  flowers  there.  "  Am  I  fanciful,"  he  asks, 
"  when  I  would  extend  the  obligation  of  gratitude  to 
insensate  things  ?  May  not  a  man  have  a  solitary 
pleasure  in  doing  something  gratuitously  for  the  sake 
of  his  house,  as  for  an  individual  to  which  he  owes  so 
much  ?"  They  intend  to  keep  no  servant,  but  have 
engaged  a  woman  to  do  some  of  the  housework  by  the 
day.  He  says  they  have  found  the  people  in  the  neigh- 
bouring cottages  "  uniformly  kind-hearted,  frank,  and 
manly,  prompt  to  serve,  without  servility."  He  hopes 
for  skating  on  Rydal  Water,  and  has  begun  the  com- 
position of  a  new  poem,  on  some  subject  already  dis- 
cussed with  Coleridge. 

The  year  1 800  was  one  of  the  most  prolific  of  all  Words- 


i8oo]  A  PRODUCTIVE  YEAR  397 

worth's  years.  In  it  he  probably  finished  the  first  and 
second  books  of  "  The  Prelude,"  besides  composing 
that  great  fragment  of  "  The  Recluse  "  which  was  not 
published  in  full  until  1888,  and  many  other  poems, 
inspired  by  his  new  surroundings,  among  them  "  The 
Brothers,"  "  Michael,"  and  "  The  Pet  Lamb."  It  is 
pleasant  to  observe  that  he,  who  had  been  the  recipient 
of  much  hospitality,  proved  hospitable  himself  as  soon 
as  he  had  a  home  to  offer  to  his  kindred  and  friends. 
His  brother  John,  the  sailor,  spent  a  large  part  of  this 
year  with  him.  Coleridge,  too,  was  more  than  once  a 
guest  at  Dove  Cottage  in  1800.  He  had  gone,  as  we 
have  seen,  from  Sockburn  to  London,  where  he  arrived 
November  27,  and  settled  with  his  family.  For  nearly 
three  months  he  wrote  for  Stuart's  paper,  The  Morning 
Post.  He  then  gave  up  his  engagement,  in  order  to 
work  at  his  translation  of  Schiller's  "  Wallenstein."* 
In  February  Mrs.  Coleridge  and  their  son  Hartley  left 
London,  and  Coleridge  spent  a  month,  perhaps  two 
months,  with  the  Lambs.  From  their  house  Coleridge 
wrote  to  Poole,  in  March :  "  Certainly  no  one,  neither  you 
or  the  Wedgwoods,  although  you  far  more  than  anyone 
else,  ever  entered  into  the  feelings  due  to  a  man  like 
Wordsworth,  of  whom  I  do  not  hesitate  in  saying  that, 
since  Milton,  no  one  has  manifested  himself  equal  to 
him."t 

He  wrote  to  Josiah  Wedgwood,  on  April  21,  from 
Dove  Cottage  again:  "  To-morrow  morning  I  send  off 
the  last  sheet  of  my  irksome,  soul-wearying  labour,  the 
translation  of  Schiller  ";  and  on  May  21  he  wrote  from 
Poole's  house  to  Godwin:  "  I  left  Wordsworth  on  the 
4th  of  this  month ;  if  I  cannot  procure  a  suitable  house 
at  Stowey,  I  return  to  Cumberland  and  settle  at  Kes- 
wick."! Campbell  states  that  no  house  being  procur- 
able at  Stowey,  Coleridge  "  took  his  wife  and  child  to 
Dove  Cottage,"  where  they  all  remained  "  from  the  29th 

*   J.  Dykes  Campbell's  "  Life  of  S.  T.  Coleridge,"  p.  no. 

f   "  Thomas  Poole  and  his  Friends,"  II.  7. 

X  See  Campbell's  "  Life  of  S.  T.  Coleridge,"  p.  112;  Mr.  E.  if.  Coleridge's 
"  Letters  from  the  Lake  Poets  to  Daniel  Stuart,"  p.  7;  and  C.  Kcgan 
Paul's  "  William  Godwin:  his  Friends  and   Contemporaries,"  Vol.  II.,  p.  3. 


398  GRASMERE  AND  THE  LAKES    [chap.xvi 

June  until  the  24th  July,  when  they  moved  into  Greta 
Hall  "  at  Keswick.*  During  part  of  this  visit  Coleridge 
was  ill,  with  what  he  described  as  rheumatic  fever,  but 
notwithstanding  every  disability,  he  was  again  braced  by 
contact  with  Wordsworth.  It  was  comparatively  easy 
for  him  to  begin  great  undertakings  anywhere;  under 
Wordsworth's  influence  he  sometimes  brought  them  to 
a  successful  conclusion.  In  September,  1800,  he  wrote 
to  Sir  Humphry  Davy  (?)  from  Keswick:  "  I  abandon 
poetry  altogether.  I  leave  the  higher  and  deeper  kinds 
to  Wordsworth,  the  delightful,  popular,  and  simply  dig- 
nified to  Southey,  and  reserve  for  myself  the  honourable 
attempt  to  make  others  feel  and  understand  their 
writings,  as  they  deserve  to  be  felt  and  understood."  | 

It  was  an  occasion  of  reverent  delight  when  Mr. 
Gordon  Wordsworth,  the  poet's  grandson,  placed  in  my 
hand  the  little  account-books  which  contain  Dorothy 
Wordsworth's  Journal.  She  is  to  me  the  most  de- 
lightful, the  most  fascinating  woman  who  has  enriched 
literary  history.  Poetry  owes  to  her  more  than  it  owes 
to  any  other  person  who  was  not  actually  a  great  poet. 
Had  Petrarch  not  met  Laura,  he  might,  one  feels,  have 
sung  another  woman's  praise.  We  shall  never  know 
how  much  of  Dante's  Beatrice  was  pure  abstraction. 
Dorothy  Wordsworth  was  to  her  brother  not  only  an 
inspiration,  but  a  helper  in  many  ways.  Her  love  and 
solicitude  followed  everywhere  the  hesitating  steps  of 
Coleridge,  and  what  she  was  to  him  one  can  hardly  ven 

*  I  am  not  sure  that  the  Coleridges  stayed  at  Dove  Cottage.  In 
Dorothy  Wordsworth's  Journal  she  mentions  inquiring  about  lodgings  for 
Coleridge  on  June  2  and  10.  Afterwards,  in  summing  up  the  events 
between  June  27  and  July  26,  she  says:  "  On  Sunday  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Cole- 
ridge and  Hartley  came.  .  .  .  They  staid  with  us  three  weeks,  and  till 
the  Thursday  following,  from  1st  till  the  23rd  of  June."  Professor  Knight 
is  correct  ("  Dorothy  Wordsworth's  Journals,"  I.  43)  in  his  calculation  that 
it  was  really  from  Sunday,  June  29,  to  Thursday,  July  24,  that  they 
stayed;  but  it  is  not  certain,  though  probable  enough,  that  they  were 
inmates  of  the  cottage  all  that  time.  See  Coleridge's  letter  to  Josiah 
Wedgwood,  July  24,  in  Cottle's  "  Reminiscences,"  p.  435;  and  "  Letters 
from  the  Lake  Poets  to  Daniel  Stuart,"  p.  11. 

■f  From  "Letters  hitherto  uncollected  by  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridfe," 
edited  by  Colonel  W.  F.  Prideaux,  1913.  Printed  for  private  circulation. 
British  Museum  copy. 


isooj  DOROTHY'S  JOURNALS  399 

ture  to  surmise.  Her  Grasmere  Journal  is  full  of  incom- 
plete poetry,  the  star-dust  of  poetry  still  unpolarized, 
pollen  of  the  flowering  fields,  a  something  midway  be- 
tween daily  experience  and  immortal  art.  The  first 
entry  is  dated  May  14,  1800.  It  is  evident  from  the 
very  first  page  that  the  idyll  of  Racedown  and  Alfoxden 
still  goes  on  unbroken,  the  same  enthusiastic  devotion 
to  her  brother,  the  same  exact  and  loving  study  of 
nature,  the  same  sense  of  being  in  a  fresh,  wonderful 
world.  Yet  a  shadow  appears  to  have  fallen  across  her 
happy  spirit,  causing  tears,  but  no  complaints.  She 
begins  to  write  on  a  day  when  William  has  left  her  to 
return  to  Mary  Hutchinson  in  Yorkshire.  She  is  too 
brave  to  make  a  confidant  even  of  her  diary,  but  loneli- 
ness no  doubt  drove  her  to  write:  "  Wm.  and  John  set 
off  into  Yorkshire.  .  .  .  My  heart  was  so  full  that  I 
could  hardly  speak  to  W.  when  I  gave  him  a  farewell 
kiss.  I  sate  a  long  time  upon  a  stone  at  the  margin  of 
the  lake,  and  after  a  flood  of  tears  my  heart  was  easier. 
The  lake  looked  to  me,  I  knew  not  why,  dull  and  melan- 
choly, and  the  weltering  on  the  shores  seemed  a  heavy 
sound.  .  .  .  The  valley  very  green;  many  sweet  views 
up  to  Rydale,  when  I  could  juggle  away  the  fine  houses; 
but  they  disturbed  me,  even  more  than  when  I  have 
been  happier.  ...  I  resolved  to  write  a  journal  of  the 
time,  till  W.  and  J.  return,  and  I  set  about  keeping  my 
resolve,  because  1  will  not  quarrel  with  myself,  and 
because  I  shall  give  Willam  pleasure  by  it  when  he 
comes  home  again.  .  .  .  Oh,  that  I  had  a  letter  from 
William  !" 

The  next  day,  she  writes,  after  a  solitary  ramble 
round  the  lake,  at  the  foot  of  Loughrigg  Fell:  "  Gras- 
mere very  solemn  in  the  last  glimpse  of  twilight.  It 
calls  home  the  heart  to  quietness.  I  had  been  very 
melancholy.  In  my  walk  back  I  had  many  of  my 
saddest  thoughts,  and  I  could  not  keep  the  tears  within 
me.  But  when  I  came  to  Grasmere  I  felt  that  it  did 
me  good.  I  finished  my  letter  to  M.  H." — i.e.,  to  Mary 
Hutchinson.  It  calls  home  the  heart  to  quietness.  Was 
not  she,  too,  a  poet  ? 


400  GRASMERE  AND  THE  LAKES    [chaf.xvj 

Within  the  next  few  days  she  read  several  plays  of 
Shakespeare  and  some  ballads,  worked  busily  in  house 
and  garden,  listened  sympathetically  to  tales  of  woe 
from  poor  travellers,  watched  closely  the  varying  stages 
of  the  season,  and,  above  all,  waited  for  letters.  Her 
walks  never  took  her  far  from  the  cottage,  especially  as 
the  time  drew  near  when  William  might  possibly  return. 
She  would  rather  sacrifice  the  glory  of  the  long  summer 
twilights  than  fail  to  be  at  home  to  greet  him  if  he  came 
unannounced.  She  wrote  to  her  brothers  Christopher 
and  William,  to  the  Hutchinsons,  to  Coleridge,  to  Charles 
Lloyd.  She  fell  in  love  with  the  lower  end  of  Easedale 
and  the  rocky  knoll  of  Butterlip  How,  and  spent  much 
time  sitting  there  and  on  the  slopes  beside  Rydal  Water. 
Once,  upon  the  side  of  Loughrigg,  her  heart,  she  says, 
dissolved  in  what  she  saw.  On  Wednesday,  June  4, 
1800,  she  writes :  "  I  lingered  out  of  doors  in  the  hope  of 
hearing  my  brother's  tread."  On  Friday,  hurrying  home 
at  night  from  the  post-office  at  Ambleside,  "  I  slack- 
ened my  pace,"  she  says,  "  as  I  came  near  home,  fear- 
ing to  hear  that  he  was  not  come.  I  listened  till  after 
one  o'clock  to  every  barking  dog."  Next  day:  "  I  did 
not  leave  home,  in  the  expectation  of  Wm.  and  John, 
and  sitting  at  work  till  after  1 1  o'clock  I  heard  a  foot 
at  the  front  of  the  house,  turn  round,  and  open  the  gate. 
It  was  William  !  After  our  first  joy  was  over  we  got 
some  tea.  We  did  not  go  to  bed  till  4  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  so  he  had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  our  im- 
provements." 

Perhaps  it  was  during  this  absence  that  Wordsworth 
became  engaged  to  Mary  Hutchinson,  though  the  sub- 
ject is  never  directly  mentioned.  Coleridge  had  been 
more  or  less  expected  for  some  time,  and  the  uncer- 
tainty continued  till  June  29.  John  Wordsworth  came 
home  a  day  later  than  William.  We  hear  no  more  of 
sadness.  It  is  refreshing  to  read  of  the  poet  fishing, 
setting  pike  floats,  and  cutting  down  a  tree,  and  notable 
indeed  is  the  information  that  "  Wm.  stuck  peas." 
The  nebular  stuff  of  a  poem  is  in  Dorothy's  elaborate 
account  of  "  a  very  tall  woman,  tall  much  beyond  the 


i8oo]  DOROTHY'S  SERVICE  401 

measure  of  tall  women,"  whose  children  begged  and  told 
a  lie,  and  whom  she  saw  again,  "  creeping  with  a  beggar's 
complaining  foot."  It  is  evident  she  is  treasuring  up 
all  the  details  of  the  story  and  all  the  effective  terms  of 
speech  that  occur  to  her,  as  material  for  a  poem,  and 
nearly  two  years  later,  when  her  brother  wrote  "Beggars," 
he  used  this  material.  Such  culled  terms  as  "  the  whin- 
ing voice  of  sorrow  "  and  "  creeping  with  a  beggar's 
complaining  foot  "  show  that  she  had  lately  been  read- 
ing the  old  dramatists,  and  are  evidences  of  an  effort  on 
her  part ;  but  generally  the  charm  of  her  phrases  springs 
from  their  simplicity.  The  deep  calm  of  her  happiness 
sometimes  changed  to  a  more  tumultuous  joy,  an  ecstasy 
of  feeling.  This  she  nearly  always  condensed  into  a 
sentence  or  two;  for  example,  "  Grasmere  looked  so 
beautiful  that  my  heart  was  almost  melted  away." 

But  her  usefulness  to  her  brother  was  not  limited  to 
the  higher  offices  of  comforter,  counsellor,  provider,  and 
critic.  She  had  already  begun  her  lifelong  occupation 
of  copying  his  poems.  The  ordinary  domestic  cares — 
housekeeping,  cooking,  mending,  papering  rooms,  gar- 
dening, etc. — sat  lightly  on  her.  What  there  was  to  do 
she  did,  but  had  plenty  of  time  to  spare  for  reading  and 
walking.  Seven  months  slipped  away  before  they  un- 
packed their  "  Somersetshire  goods." 

At  the  end  of  July,  Coleridge  came  over  from  Kes- 
wick for  a  short  visit,  bringing  the  second  volume  of 
Southev's  "  Annual  Anthology,"  which  contained  a 
number  of  his  own  poems.  He  had  been  able  to  keep 
away  just  one  week.  The  men  went  to  bathe,  and  after- 
wards they  all  sailed  on  the  lake,  letting  the  boat  take 
its  own  course  while  they  read  poetry.  Wordsworth 
appears  to  have  been  stimulated  by  the  presence  of 
Coleridge  to  finish  "  The  Brothers,"  one  of  the  most 
ambitious  poems  he  had  hitherto  written,  and  one 
which  most  daringly  exemplifies  his  own  theories.  It 
was  his  habit,  as  is  well  known,  to  compose  while  walk- 
ing in  the  open  air,  and  he  retained  hundreds  of  lines 
in  his  mind,  often  for  many  weeks,  before  they  were 
completed.  On  Friday,  August  1,  the  day  after  Cole- 
1.  26 


402  GRASMERE  AND  THE  LAKES     [chap,  xvi 

ridge  came,  Dorothy  writes:  "  In  the  morning  I  copied 
The  Brothers.  Coleridge  and  Wm.  went  down  to  the 
lake.  They  returned,  and  we  all  went  together  to  Mary 
Point  [so  named  in  honour  of  Mary  Hutchinson],  where 
we  sate  in  the  breeze,  and  the  shade,  and  read  Wm.'s 
poems.  Altered  The  Whirlblast,  etc.  We  drank  tea  in 
the  orchard."  How  young  Wordsworth  was,  to  have 
written  such  a  poem  as  "  The  Brothers  "! 

Wordsworth  seems  to  have  returned  to  Keswick  the 
next  day  with  Coleridge,  and  to  have  stayed  there  till 
the  6th,  the  supplies  at  Greta  Hall  being  meanwhile 
enriched  by  a  large  basket  of  peas  sent  over  by  the 
anxious  sister.  William  had  not  been  at  home  again 
for  more  than  two  days  when  they  both  walked  over 
the  mountains  to  Wattendlath,  and  found  themselves 
by  eleven  o'clock  at  night — at  Coleridge's  house  !  The 
next  day  Dorothy  walked  with  Coleridge  in  the  Windy 
Brow  woods,  and  the  next  day,  being  Sunday,  she 
records  the  fact  that  "  the  C.'s  went  to  church."  As 
J.  Dykes  Campbell  mischievously  notes,  this  upsets  the 
general  opinion  that  Coleridge  never  did  such  a  thing. 
It  was  a  week  or  two  before  they  could  tear  themselves 
away,  and  the  record  of  the  visit  is  very  incomplete. 
The  brother  and  sister  took  at  least  one  walk  together 
along  the  Cockermouth  road,  their  faces  set  towards  the 
place  of  their  birth,  and  perhaps  their  minds  were  on 
the  old  times  there,  though  she  remarks  that  William 
"  was  altering  his  poems."  This  expression  recurs  again 
and  again  in  the  Journal,  with  a  frequency  that  would 
be  alarming  did  we  not  know  how  much  poetry  he  finally 
allowed  to  pass  on  to  the  printer.  One  might  otherwise 
nave  feared  that  he  might  keep  altering  it  for  ever; 
and,  indeed,  gauged  by  a  standard  of  mere  time,  he 
exerted  himself  far  more  in  revision  than  in  the  first 
utterance  of  a  poem.  As  an  example  of  the  extreme 
care  taken  with  poems  while  they  were  going  through 
the  press,  I  will  quote  here  a  passage  from  Mrs.  Davy's 
manuscript  Memories  of  William  Wordsworth.  Whether 
it  refers  to  1 800  or  1 802  is  not  clear,  and  makes  no 
difference : 


i8oo]  JOINT  LABOURS  403 

"  Monday,  April  22,    1850. — I   had  some  talk  which 
interested  me  much  to-day  with  good  Mrs.  Nicholson 
at    the   post-office,   concerning   Mr.   Wordsworth.     She 
has  known  him  perhaps  longer  than  anyone  here,  and 
in    her    simple,    homely,    hearty    manner    does    as    full 
justice  to  his  sweet  and  fine  qualities  as  anyone  could 
do.     She  went  back,  in  the  manner  of  the  old,  on  her 
earlier   days    of   acquaintance   with    the   poet    and    his 
sister,  when  they  lived  at  Grasmere,  and  when,  as  she 
said,  they  would  often  walk  to  Ambleside  together  after 
dark,  in  order  to  repair  some  omission  or  alter  some 
arrangement  in  the  proof-sheets   of  his   Poems,  which 
had  been  posted  for  the  press.     '  At  that  time,'  said 
Mrs.  N.,  '  the  mail  used  to  pass  through  at  one  in  the 
morning,  so  my  husband  and  me  used  to  go  early  to 
bed ;  but  when  Mr.  and  Miss  W.  came,  let  it  be  as  late 
as  it  would,  my  husband  would  get  up  and  let  them  in 
and  give  them  their  letter  out  of  the  box,  and  then 
they  would  sit  up  in  our  parlour  or  in  the  kitchen,  dis- 
cussing over  it  and  reading  and  changing  till  they  had 
made  it  quite  to  their  minds,  and  then  they  would  seal 
up  the  packet  again,  and  knock  at  our  bed-room  door, 
and  say,  "  Now,  Mr.  Nicholson,  please  will  you  bolt  the 
door  after  us?     Here  is   our  letter  now   for  the  post. 
We'll  not  trouble  you  any  more  this  night."     And,  oh, 
they  were  always  so  friendly  to  us  and  so  loving  to  one 
another.'  " 

On  Sunday,  August  17,  Dorothy  says:  "  William  read 
us  The  Seven  Sisters  " — i.e.,  "  The  Solitude  of  Bin- 
norie."  A  few  days  later  "  Wm.  read  Peter  Bell  and 
the  poem  of  Joanna,  beside  the  Rothay  by  the  road- 
side." The  latter  piece,  like  the  others  included  by 
Wordsworth  under  the  general  title  of  "  Poems  on  the 
Naming  of  Places,"  presents  many  difficulties  to  the 
commentator.  If,  as  is  commonly  supposed,  the  Lady 
of  the  poem  was  Mary  Hutchinson's  sister  Joanna,  there 
is  no  other  evidence  that  she  had  ever  visited  Grasmere, 
and  certain  it  is  that  she  could  not  have  been  there  in 
Wordsworth's  company  eighteen  months  before  the 
poem  was  written,  as  the  heroine  of  the  laugh  is  declared 
to  have  been.  It£was  published  in  1800.  Wordsworth 
was  always  purposely  and  studiously  inexact  in  passages 
containing  personal  references  to  himself  and  his  friends. 


404  GRASMERE  AND  THE  LAKES     [chap,  xvr 

If  biography  were  to  depend  entirely  upon  his  poems 
for  the  record  of  his  life,  the  chronology  would  be  hope- 
lessly contradictory.  The  "  Poems  on  the  Naming  of 
Places  "  show  his  fine  independence  of  ordinary  stan- 
dards. He  was  content  to  write  for  himself  and  the 
small  circle  about  him,  and  indifferent  to  the  rewards  of 
fame;  for  he  can  scarcely  have  had  publication  in  view, 
although  some  of  the  pieces  did  appear  in  the  next 
volume  he  published.  They  are  examples  also,  it  must 
be  said,  of  a  dangerous  tendency  to  look  so  closely  at 
small  things  that  he  sometimes  failed  to  see  them  in 
proper  perspective.  It  is  no  wonder  if  many  readers 
found  these  poems  too  personal,  too  particular.  Beauties 
of  their  own  they  of  course  possess,  yet  few  persons 
would  take  the  trouble  to  seek  these  out  and  do  them 
justice  if  the  entire  achievement  of  their  author  had  not 
lent  interest — a  deep  and  delightful  interest — to  all  his 
friendships,  haunts,  and  habits. 

These  remarks  are  not  intended  to  be  applied  to 
"  Peter  Bell."  That  great  and  unique  poem,  a  startling 
innovation  in  our  literature,  is  no  doubt  a  stumbling- 
block  to  many  readers,  but  no  one  who  even  half  under- 
stands Wordsworth's  motives  and  principles  can  fail  to 
perceive  that  it  is  one  of  his  most  characteristic  works. 
In  it,  fully  as  much  as  in  any  other  poem  he  ever  wrote, 
we  have  the  fruit  of  those  profound  studies  in  psychology 
which  had  engaged  him  for  several  years.  He  believed, 
and  modern  research  has  confirmed  his  opinion,  that 
the  science  of  psychology  could  be  enriched  by  atten- 
tion to  the  particular  rather  than  the  general.  Since 
"  normal  "  is  only  a  term  by  which  men  assert  an  undue 
supremacy  for  what  they  deem  to  be  general,  it  follows 
that  human  nature  can  best  be  investigated  in  specific 
cases,  not  one  of  which  is  ever  really  normal — that  is  to 
say,  stamped  with  all  the  qualities  of  any  given  standard. 
"  Sanity  "  is  a  mere  abstraction.  There  is  no  wholly 
sane  individual.  And  for  certain  purposes  of  investiga- 
tion more  can  be  learned  from  persons  distinctly  below 
the  average  of  intelligence  or  of  moral  strength  than 
from  those  whose  natural  propensities  are  overlaid  with 


•  8ooj  A  NEW  EDITION  405 

acquired  wisdom  and  restrained  by  vigorous  will-power. 
The  oculist  paralyzes  the  accommodation  of  the  eye  in 
order  to  see  into  its  depths.  Just  so,  the  student  of  the 
mind  can  often  see  more  plainly  the  recesses  of  our 
nature  when  it  lies  helplessly  deprived  of  the  immunities 
provided  by  strong  volition.  And  what  he  sees  there 
is  not  always  unlovely  or  without  honour  to  the  species. 
Much  rare  information,  many  a  deep  vision  and  keen 
feeling,  can  be  found  in  "  defectives,"  as  we  call  them 
now.  Some  things  have  been  hid  from  the  wise  and 
prudent  and  revealed  unto  babes.  Wordsworth  took  the 
pains  to  explain  that  his  Idiot  Boy  was  precisely  what 
we  term  a  "  defective."  In  "  Peter  Bell  "  he  wished, 
in  particular,  to  illustrate  the  influence  of  natural  objects 
upon  a  soul  amenable  to  superstition,  but  to  few  of  the 
other  means'  by  which  the  race  has  been  educated  from 
animal  grossness  up  to  reason  and  self-control.  It  may 
perhaps  be  disputed  whether  he  was  wise  to  indulge, 
here  and  there,  in  a  kind  of  grotesque  simplicity,  which 
looks  like  humour,  but  is  not.  Both  he  and  Coleridge 
worked  occasionally  in  this  vein.  There  are  traces  of  it, 
and  wholly  admirable,  in  the  "Ancient  Mariner."  They 
had  in  view  a  certain  strain  of  tragic  rudeness  which 
occurs  sometimes  in  stories  invented  by  children  and 
in  many  old  ballads. 

There  were  frequent  conferences  with  Coleridge  about 
the  contents  of  the  new  and  enlarged  edition  of  "  Lyrical 
Ballads."  By  the  most  direct  route,  over  Dunmail 
Raise,  the  distance  between  Keswick  and  Grasmere  is 
fully  thirteen  miles,  and  these  lovers  of  the  hills  were 
not  always  content  to  travel  by  the  road,  but  sometimes 
made  the  arduous  detour  by  way  of  Wattendlath,  or 
even  climbed  over  mighty  Helvellyn.  For  example, 
under  date  of  August  31,  Dorothy  writes:  "At 
1 1  o'clock  Coleridge  came,  when  I  was  walking  in  the 
still  clear  moonshine  in  the  garden.  He  came  over 
Helvellyn.  Wm.  was  gone  to  bed,  and  John  also,  worn 
out  with  his  ride  round  Coniston.  We  sate  and  chatted 
till  half-past  three."  He  stayed  at  Dove  Cottage 
several  days  at  least,  and  the  time  was  rich  in  friendly 


406  GRASMERE  AND  THE  LAKES     [chap,  xvi 

talk.  Coleridge  read  part  of  "  Christabel."  Words- 
worth read  what  he  had  lately  written,  and  one  great 
result  of  the  visit  was  that  Wordsworth  soon  afterwards 
began  to  toil  over  his  supreme  work  in  prose,  the  Preface 
to  the  1800  edition  of  "  Lyrical  Ballads."  This  essay, 
which  revived  in  modern  English  the  grand  style  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  is  justly  ranked  with  Sidney's 
"  Defence  of  Poesie  "  as  one  of  the  noblest  pieces  of 
criticism  in  our  language,  or  in  any  language,  bears  deep 
traces  of  Coleridge's  influence,  notwithstanding  its 
thoroughly  individual  character.  The  entries  in  the 
Journal  for  the  first  three  days  of  September  tell  so 
much  of  the  dear  companionship  between  the  Words- 
worths  and  their  friend,  that  I  transcribe  the  greater 
part  of  them.  The  Mr.  Simpson  who  is  mentioned  was 
the  clergyman  at  Wythburn,  the  tiny  hamlet  on  the 
Keswick  road  just  beyond  Dunmail  Raise.  The  Words- 
worths  were  for  ever  stopping  at  his  house  to  rest  and 
drink  tea  and  exchange  gossip  on  their  way  to  and  from 
Keswick,  and  the  Simpsons  were  often  at  Dove  Cottage. 
It  was  just  like  Coleridge  to  find  a  hitherto  undiscovered 
resource  in  the  tiny  orchard.  And  the  instances  here 
recorded  will  serve  as  well  as  a  dozen  others  which  might 
have  been  quoted,  to  show  how  he  turned  night  into  day. 

"  Monday  Morning,  1st  September. — We  walked  in  the 
wood  by  the  lake.  W.  read  Joanna,  and  the  Firgrove, 
to  Coleridge.  They  bathed.  The  morning  was  delight- 
ful, with  somewhat  of  an  autumnal  freshness.  After 
dinner,  Coleridge  discovered  a  rock-seat  in  the  orchard. 
Cleared  away  brambles.  Coleridge  went  to  bed  after 
tea.  John  and  I  followed  Wm.  up  the  hill,  and  then 
returned  to  go  to  Mr.  Simpson's.  We  borrowed  some 
bottles  for  bottling  rum.  The  evening  somewhat  frosty 
and  grey,  but  very  pleasant.  I  broiled  Coleridge  a 
mutton  chop,  which  he  ate  in  bed.  Wm.  was  gone  to 
bed.     I  chatted  with  John  and  Coleridge  till  near  12. 

"  Tuesday,  2nd. — In  the  morning  they  all  went  to  Stickle 
Tarn.  A  very  fine,  warm,  sunny,  beautiful  morning.  I 
baked  a  pie,  etc.,  for  dinner.  Little  Sally  was  with  me. 
The  fair-day.  Miss  Simpson  and  Mr.  came  down  to 
tea.  We  walked  to  the  fair.  There  seemed  very  few 
people  and  very  few  stalls,  yet   I   believe   there  were 


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i8ooj  VILLAGE  LIFE  40; 

many  cakes  and  much  beer  sold.  My  brothers  came 
home  to  dinner  at  6  o'clock.  We  drank  tea  immediately 
after  by  candlelight.  It  was  a  lovely  moonlight  night. 
We  talked  much  about  a  house  on  Helvellyn.  The 
moonlight  shone  only  upon  the  village.  It  did  not 
eclipse  the  village  lights,  and  the  sound  of  dancing  and 
merriment  came  along  the  still  air.  I  walked  with 
Coleridge  and  Wm.  up  the  lane  and  by  the  church,  and 
then  lingered  with  Coleridge  in  the  garden.  John  and 
Wm.  were  both  gone  to  bed,  and  all  the  lights  out. 

"  Wednesday,  3rd  September. — Coleridge,  Wm.,  and 
John  went  from  home,  to  go  upon  Helvellyn  with  Mr. 
Simpson.  They  set  out  after  breakfast.  I  accompanied 
them  up  near  the  blacksmith's.  ...  I  then  went  to  a 
funeral  at  John  Dawson's.  About  10  men  and  4  women. 
Bread,  cheese,  and  ale.  They  talked  sensibly  and  cheer- 
fully about  common  things.  The  dead  person,  56  years 
of  age,  buried  by  the  parish.  The  coffin  was  neatly 
lettered  and  painted  black,  and  covered  with  a  decent 
cloth.  They  set  the  corpse  down  at  the  door;  and, 
while  we  stood  within  the  threshold,  the  men,  with  their 
hats  off,  sang,  with  decent  and  solemn  countenances,  a 
verse  of  a  funeral  psalm.  The  corpse  was  then  borne 
down  the  hill,  and  they  sang  till  they  had  passed  the 
Town- End.  I  was  affected  to  tears  while  we  stood  in 
the  house,  the  coffin  lying  before  me.  There  were  no 
near  kindred,  no  children.  When  we  got  out  of  the 
dark  house  the  sun  was  shining,  and  the  prospect  looked 
as  divinely  beautiful  as  I  ever  saw  it.  It  seemed  more 
sacred  than  I  had  ever  seen  it,  and  yet  more  allied  to 
human  life.  The  green  fields,  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  churchyard,  were  as  green  as  possible;  and,  with  the 
brightness  of  the  sunshine,  looked  quite  gay.  I  thought 
she  was  going  to  a  quiet  spot,  and  I  could  not  help 
weeping  very  much.  When  we  came  to  the  bridge, 
they  began  to  sing  again,  and  stopped  during  four  lines 
before  they  entered  the  churchyard.  .  .  .  Wm.  and 
John  came  home  at  10  o'clock." 

On  September  10,  1800,  Dorothy  writes  to  Mrs.  Mar- 
shall:* "  We  meditate  a  journey  to  the  neighbourhood 
of  Scarborough  to  see  our  friends  the  Hutchinsons,  who 
are  settled  there;  we  shall  then  extend  our  journey 
further  and  stop  with  you  at  Leeds.     Our  plan  is  to 

*   From  a  lottor  bolonging  to  Mr.  Marshall. 


408  GRASMERE  AND  THE  LAKES    [chap,  xvi 

purchase  a  taxed  cart,  which  we  can  have  for  seven 
guineas,  and  hire  a  horse  if  we  cannot  afford  to  buy  one; 
but  this  being  altogether  a  very  grand  scheme,  a  large 
sum  will  be  necessary  to  execute  it,  and  it  will  depend 
entirely  upon  William's  success  with  the  booksellers." 

Miss  Wordsworth  entered  many  a  mountain  and  vil- 
lage household,  and  shared  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  many 
a  humble  family.  Her  brother,  though  absorbed  in  his 
work,  took  his  part  in  all  these  interests.  Poor  foun- 
dered travellers,  peddlers,  and  destitute  children,  often 
came  to  their  door  for  a  bit  to  eat  and  a  small  dole. 
Help  was  given  neither  carelessly  nor  grudgingly,  but 
after  close  and  sympathetic  inquiry.  The  cottage  often 
sheltered  some  visiting  friend,  though  money  and  pro- 
visions were  scarce  enough.  They  lived  on  terms  of 
great  friendliness  with  their  humble  neighbours,  the 
Ashburners,  performing  and  accepting  a  thousand  kind 
acts.  Charles  Lloyd  was  living  at  Ambleside,  and  some- 
times called.  The  Journal  was  neglected  throughout 
the  middle  of  September,  and  written  up  from  memory 
afterwards.  It  mentions  several  calls  from  "  Jones," 
and  finally  a  week's  visit  from  him,  ending  September  26. 
This  may  have  been  the  Rev.  Robert  Jones,  Words- 
worth's old  college  friend,  his  companion  on  his  walking 
trip  through  France.  Coleridge  came  in  on  the  26th, 
and  on  the  29th  John  Wordsworth  went  away  to  join 
his  ship,  the  Earl  of  Abergavenny .  The  farewell  took 
place  near  Grisedale  Tarn,  at  the  top  of  the  pass  dividing 
the  vale  of  Grasmere  from  the  eastern  valleys  that  lead 
to  Penrith.  His  sister  wrote:  "  Wm.  and  I  parted  with 
him  in  sight  of  Ullswater.  It  was  a  fine  day,  showery, 
but  with  sunshine  and  fine  clouds.  Poor  fellow,  my 
heart  was  right  sad.  I  could  not  help  thinking  we 
should  see  him  again  because  he  was  only  going  to  Pen- 
rith." The  sailor  brother  had  a  childlike  and  lovable 
nature.  He  loved  poetry  and  had  read  deeply,  though 
not  widely.  He  shared  the  fondness  of  his  older  brother 
and  sister  for  out-door  life,  and  was  altogether  a  cheerful 
and  congenial  comrade. 

The  last  sheet  of  the  Notes  and  Preface  to  "  Lyrical 


i8oo]  "  THE  LEECH  GATHERER  "  409 

Ballads  "  was  written  out  by  the  faithful  amanuensis 
on  September  30,  and  corrected  on  October  1 ,  1 800.  The 
next  day  was  spent  in  well-earned  recreation.  They 
went  to  their  lovely  haunt  on  Butterlip  How,  and  looked 
up  into  Easedale,  where  William  was  wont  to  compose 
beside  the  rushing  brook.  And  Dorothy  records  a  tell- 
tale fact,  in  terms  perhaps  unconsciously  amusing, 
which  shows  how  very  human  she  and  her  brother  were : 
"  We  had  a  pleasant  conversation  about  the  manners 
of  the  rich;  avarice,  inordinate  desires,  and  the  effem- 
inacy, unnaturalness,  and  unworthy  objects  of  educa- 
tion." Among  the  consolations  of  poverty  this  form 
of  entertainment  counts  for  a  good  deal. 

On  October  3,  1800,  realizing  that  she  had  under  her 
hand  the  material  for  a  poem,  and  perhaps  obeying  her 
brother's  suggestion,  she  wrote  the  following  details  of 
an  incident  which  to  most  persons  would  have  seemed 
unimportant.  Wordsworth  did  not  begin  to  compose 
"  The  Leech  Gatherer  "  till  May  3,  1802,  but  here  is  its 
real  beginning : 

"  When  William  and  I  returned  from  accompanying 
Jones,  we  met  an  old  man  almost  double.  He  had  on 
a  coat,  thrown  over  his  shoulders,  above  his  waistcoat 
and  coat.  Under  this  he  carried  a  bundle,  and  had  an 
apron  on  and  a  nightcap.  His  face  was  interesting. 
He  had  dark  eyes  and  a  long  nose.  John,  who  after- 
wards met  him  at  Wytheburn,  took  him  for  a  Jew. 
He  was  of  Scotch  parents,  but  had  been  born  in  the 
army.  He  had  had  a  wife,  and  '  she  was  a  good  woman, 
and  it  pleased  God  to  bless  us  with  ten  children.'  All 
these  were  dead  but  one,  of  whom  he  had  not  heard  for 
many  years,  a  sailor.  His  trade  was  to  gather  leeches, 
but  now  leeches  were  scarce,  and  he  had  not  strength 
for  it.  He  lived  by  begging,  and  was  making  his  way 
to  Carlisle,  where  he  should  buy  a  few  godly  books  to 
sell.  He  said  leeches  were  very  scarce,  partly  owing  to 
this  dry  season,  but  many  years  they  had  been  scarce. 
He  supposed  it  owing  to  their  being  much  sought  after, 
that  they  did  not  breed  fast,  and  were  of  slow  growth. 
Leeches  were  formerly  2s.  6d.  per  100;  they  are  now  30s. 
He  had  been  hurt  in  driving  a  cart,  his  leg  broken,  his 
body  driven  over,  his  skull  fractured.     He  felt  no  pain 


410  GRASMERE  AND  THE  LAKES     [chap,  xvj 

till  he  recovered  from  his  first  insensibility.     It  was  then 
late  in  the  evening,  when  the  light  was  just  going  away." 


On  October  4  Coleridge  came  in,  very  wet,  while  they 
were  at  dinner,  and  talked  till  twelve,  though  he  had 
sat  up  all  the  night  before,  "  writing  essays  for  the  news- 
paper." He  read  them  the  second  part  of  "  Christabel." 
He  read  it  again  next  day,  and  they  had  "  increasing 
pleasure."  No  doubt  conversation  with  Coleridge  gave 
Wordsworth  fresh  ideas,  for  he  and  Dorothy  spent  the 
morning  writing  an  addition  to  the  Preface.  As  was 
generally  the  case,  excessive  labour  made  William  very 
ill,  and  he  went  to  bed.  Coleridge  and  Dorothy  "  walked 
to  Ambleside  after  dark  with  the  letter,"  no  doubt  the 
fresh  manuscript  of  this  addition.  Coleridge  intended 
to  leave  them  the  next  day,  but  did  not,  and  after  tea 
they  read  "  The  Pedlar  " — i.e.,  a  portion  of"  The  Excur- 
sion." It  was  determined  not  to  print  "  Christabel  " 
with  the  "  Lyrical  Ballads."  On  the  following  day 
Dorothy  accompanied  Coleridge  as  far  as  Mr.  Simpson's 
on  his  way  home.  She  records  the  receipt  of  a  five- 
pound  note  from  Basil  Montagu,  who  was  gradually 
paying  what  he  owed  them  for  the  care  of  his  son. 

By  far  the  most  interesting  entries  in  the  Journal  for 
the  last  three  months  in  1800  are  those  which  relate 
how  the  poem  "  Michael  "  was  composed.  The  theme 
appears  to  have  been  suggested  to  Wordsworth  by 
some  actual  occurrence.  A  reaction  from  his  previous 
interest  in  the  wonderful  and  supernatural  was  inclining 
him  to  attend  strictly  to  real  life.  He  had  now  been 
living  long  enough  among  his  rustic  neighbours  to  know 
and  appreciate  to  the  full  some  of  their  touching  domes- 
tic tales.  The  story  of  "  Michael,"  as  it  came  to  him, 
was  connected  with  a  particular  spot,  hidden  in  the 
green  bosom  of  the  hills,  about  two  miles  from  the  vale 
of  Grasmere.  One  fine  October  day,  when  the  colours 
of  the  mountains  were  "  soft  and  rich  with  orange  fern, 
the  cattle  pasturing  upon  the  hilltops,  kites  sailing  in 
the  sky,  sheep  bleating,  and  feeding  in  the  watercourses," 
Dorothy  and  William  "  walked  up  Greenhead  Gill  in 


i8oo]  THE  SCENE  OF  "  MICHAEL  "  411 

search  of  a  sheepfold."  They  found  it  "  in  the  form  of 
a  heart  unequally  divided,"  but  already  falling  away. 
Yet  the  stones  were  still  lying,  a  hundred  and  twelve 
years  later,  in  much  the  same  shape,  and  nothing  that 
had  happened,  of  joy  or  grief,  of  improvement  or  de- 
struction, in  all  this  world,  had  altered  the  scene  in  any 
respect.  Only  the  sky  was  visible,  and  the  swelling 
outline  and  green  slopes  of  Fairfield,  and  the  dashing 
torrent,  and  a  few  boulders.  The  great  poem,  appar- 
ently so  simple  in  construction  and  so  free  from  artifice 
in  verse,  cost  Wordsworth  immense  toil.  He  began  to 
compose  it  immediately  after  visiting  the  sheepfold, 
and  returned  to  the  task  again  and  again,  wearing  him- 
self out,  as  his  sister  relates,  until  on  December  9  she 
writes:  "  Wm.  finished  his  poem  to-day."  The  great 
calm  of  this  and  other  poems  was  not  attained  without 
vast  expense  of  emotion.  "  He  writes,"  said  Dorothy, 
11  with  so  much  feeling  and  agitation  that  it  brings  on 
a  sense  of  pain." 

Meanwhile  the  second  edition  of  "  Lyrical  Ballads  " 
was  being  slowly  prepared.  Coleridge,  who  was  writing 
for  The  Morning  Post,  left  the  work  almost  entirely  to 
Wordsworth.  He  would  drop  in  at  Town-end  for  dinner 
or  to  spend  a  few  days,  coming  empty-handed,  but 
abounding  in  glorious  talk.  A  characteristic  record  is 
that  of  October  22:  "  Wm.  composed  without  much 
success  at  the  sheepfold.  Coleridge  came  in  to  dinner. 
He  had  done  nothing.  We  were  very  merry.  C.  and 
I  went  to  look  at  the  prospect  from  his  seat.  Wm.  read 
Ruth,  etc.,  after  supper.  Coleridge  read  Christabel." 
The  neighbourhood — and  it  must  be  remembered  that 
there  were  scarcely  any  limits  to  it — was  full  of  "  seats  " 
and  "  nooks,"  favourite  views  and  trees  and  rocks, 
which  this  delightful  trio  loved  with  childlike  attach- 
ment. It  is  a  proof  of  Wordsworth's  intense  individu- 
ality that  his  Preface  to  the  second  edition  of  "  Lyrical 
Ballads  "  has  a  style  completely  his  own,  for  it  was 
written  in  the  intervals  of  Coleridge's  impassioned 
conversation. 

Of  this  good  fellowship  we  nowhere  obtain  a  better 


4i2  GRASMERE  AND  THE  LAKES     [chap,  xvi 

glimpse  than  in  Coleridge's  letter  to  Humphry  Davy, 
from  Keswick,  July  25,  1800:* 

"  W.  Wordsworth  is  such  a  lazy  fellow  that  I  bemire 
myself  by  making  promises  for  him :  the  moment  I 
received  your  letter,  I  wrote  to  him.  He  will,  I  hope, 
write  immediately  to  Biggs  and  Cottle.  At  all  events, 
those  poems  must  not  yet  be  delivered  up  to  them, 
because  that  beautiful  poem,  '  The  Brothers,'  which  I 
read  to  you  in  Paul  Street,  I  neglected  to  deliver  to  you, 
and  that  must  begin  the  volume :  I  trust,  however,  that 
I  have  invoked  the  sleeping  bard  with  a  spell  so  potent 
that  he  will  awake  and  deliver  up  that  sword  of  Argantyr 
which  is  to  rive  the  enchanter  Gaudyverse  from  his  crown 
to  his  foot.  .  .  .  We  drank  tea  to-night  before  I  left 
Grasmere,  on  the  island  in  that  lovely  lake;  our  kettle 
swung  over  the  fire,  hanging  from  the  branch  of  a  fir- 
tree,  and  I  lay  and  saw  the  woods,  and  mountains,  and 
lake  all  trembling,  and  as  it  were  idealized  through  the 
subtle  smoke,  which  rose  up  from  the  clear,  red  embers 
of  the  fir-apples  which  we  had  collected :  afterwards  we 
made  a  glorious  bonfire  on  the  margin,  by  some  elder- 
bushes,  whose  twigs  heaved  and  sobbed  in  the  uprush- 
ing  column  of  smoke,  and  the  image  of  the  bonfire,  and 
of  us  that  danced  round  it,  ruddy,  laughing  faces  in  the 
twilight ;  the  image  of  this  in  a  lake,  smooth  as  that  sea 
to  whose  waves  the  Son  of  God  had  said  Peace  !  May 
God,  and  all  his  sons,  love  you  as  I  do." 

Coleridge's  joyous  impatience  burst  out  in  a  letter  to 
Josiah  Wedgwood,  from  Keswick,  November  1  : 

"  Wordsworth's  second  volume  of  Lyrical  Ballads 
will,  I  hope,  and  almost  believe,  afford  you  as  unmingled 
pleasure  as  is  in  the  nature  of  a  collection  of  very  varied 
poems  to  afford  to  one  individual  mind.  Sheridan  has 
sent  to  him  too — requests  him  to  write  a  tragedy  for 
Drury  Lane.  But  W.  will  not  be  diverted  by  anything 
from  the  prosecution  of  his  great  work." 

By  this,  no  doubt,  is  meant  the  projected  philosophical 
poem,  of  which  many  hundred  lines  had  already  been 
written,  at  Racedown,  at  Alfoxden,  and  in  Germany. 

*   "  Fragmentary  Remains  of  Sir  Humphry  Davy,"  London,  1858,  p.  77. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

WORDSWORTH  THE  CRITIC 

Thus  the  year  1800  came  to  a  happy  end.  Grasmere 
had  completely  won  the  poet  and  his  sister.  The  natural 
beauty  of  the  place  had  lifted  their  spirits  to  an  un- 
wonted height.  Their  rustic  neighbours  had  gained 
their  respect  and  affection.  Of  educated  people  they 
had  within  reach  the  Simpsons  at  Wythburn,  Charles 
Lloyd  at  Ambleside,  Thomas  Clarkson,  the  great  anti- 
slavery  agitator,  and  his  amiable  wife,  at  Eusemere  on 
Ullswater,  and  the  Coleridges  at  Keswick.  A  great 
period  of  poetical  studies  had  been  rounded  out  with 
the  completion  of  "  Lyrical  Ballads,"  and  the  way 
cleared  for  work  of  a  different  character.  Of  this  latter 
sort,  "  Michael  "  was  already  done,  "  The  Leech  Gath- 
erer "  was  conceived,  and  progress  had  been  made  with 
the  philosophical  poem  which  was  to  occupy  the  coming 
years. 

To  speak  of  the  book  prepared  in  1800  as  a  second 
edition  of  "  Lyrical  Ballads  "  is,  and  always  has  been, 
confusing.  Wordsworth  hoped  that  its  predecessor 
had  gained  for  him  a  number  of  readers,*  and  he 
wished  to  alter  some  of  the  poems  it  contained.  From 
every  other  consideration,  it  would  have  been  more 
proper  to  give  the  new  book  a  fresh  name.  A  strain  of 
mystery,  a  tendency  to  dwell  upon  the  abnormal  or 
grotesque,  and  a  sense  of  social  discontent,  which  pre- 

*  As  Mr.  Thomas  Hutchinson  has  conjectured,  with  the  approval  of 
W.  Hale  White  ("  A  Description  of  the  Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  Manu- 
scripts in  the  Possession  of  Mr.  T.  Norton  Longman,"  1897),  the  favour- 
able review  in  The  British  Critic  of  October,  1799,  attributing  the  whole 
work  to  Coleridge,  had  probably  helped  to  sell  some  of  the  edition,  of 
which  Cottle  had  given  the  copyright  to  Wordsworth. 

413 


414  WORDSWORTH  THE  CRITIC     [chap.xvh 

dominate  in  the  true  "  Lyrical  Ballads,"  are  less  notice- 
able in  the  poems  added  in  1 800.  One  is  tempted  to  sus- 
pect, also,  that  Wordsworth,  in  his  correspondence  with 
the  publishers  and  in  other  references  to  the  book,  unduly 
subordinates  Coleridge  to  himself.  It  is  true  that 
"  Christabel  "  was  not  included  in  the  volume,  and  that, 
with  the  exception  of  the  "  Ancient  Mariner  "  and 
"  Love,"  Coleridge's  contributions  were  very  slight. 
He  had  been  expected  to  furnish  more,  and  Dorothy 
more  than  once  records  her  disappointment  at  his 
failure  to  do  so.  He  wrote  to  his  friend  Humphry  Davy 
at  Bristol,  on  October  9,  1800,  an  explanation  of  Words- 
worth's conduct  which  fails  to  convince: 

"  The  '  Christabel  '  was  running  up  to  1,300  lines,  and 
was  so  much  admired  by  WTordsworth  that  he  thought 
it  indelicate  to  print  two  volumes  with  his  name,  in 
which  so  much  of  another  man's  was  included;  and, 
which  was  of  more  consequence,  the  poem  was  in  direct 
opposition  to  the  very  purpose  for  which  the  Lyrical 
Ballads  were  published,  viz.,  an  experiment  to  see  how 
far  those  passions  which  alone  give  any  value  to  extra- 
ordinary incidents  were  capable  of  interesting,  in  and 
for  themselves,  in  the  incidents  of  common  life.  We 
mean  to  publish  the  '  Christabel,'  therefore,  with  a  long 

blank- verse  poem  of  Wordsworth's  entitled  '  The  Ped- 

1,-,—  »  " 
Jar. 

As  W.  Hale  White  pointed  out,*  "  Christabel  "  prob- 
ably never  ran  to  such  a  length  except  in  the  imagina- 
tion of  its  author,  and  the  inconsistency  of  which 
Coleridge  makes  so  much  is  not  at  all  evident.  Words- 
worth was  so  often  obliged,  in  practical  affairs,  to  treat 
Coleridge  as  a  child,  that  he  perhaps  did  injustice  to 
him  in  this  matter.  Nevertheless,  as  is  apparent  from 
the  correspondence"  between  William  and  Dorothy 
Wordsworth  and  Coleridge,  on  the  one  hand,  with  Biggs 
and  Cottle  the  printers  and  Longman  the  publisher,  on 
the  other,  every  arrangement  was  made  with  Coleridge's 
full  consent.  Among  the  notes  to  the  first  volume  of 
the  new  edition,  however,  there  was  the  following  criti- 
cism of  the  "  Ancient  Mariner,"  ostensibly  written  by 

*  Op.  cit.,  p.  17. 


i8oi]    THE  "  ANCIENT  MARINER  "  DROPPED   41 5 

Wordsworth,  and  said  by  W.  Hale  White  to  have  been 
sent  to  the  printers  in  Dorothy's  handwriting.  It 
affects  one  unpleasantly,  as  a  piece  of  ungracious  frank- 
ness. Wordsworth,  one  feels,  ought  not  to  have  called 
attention  to  the  defects  of  his  colleague's  work,  even 
though  the  latter  had  detected  them  and  considered 
them  important.  The  note  is  as  follows;  it  was  not 
reprinted  after  1801  : 

"  I  cannot  refuse  myself  the  gratification  of  informing 
such  Readers  as  may  have  been  pleased  with  this  poem, 
or  with  any  part  of  it,  that  they  owe  their  pleasure  in 
some  sort  to  me ;  as  the  author  was  himself  very  desirous 
that  it  should  be  suppressed.  This  wish  had  arisen  from 
a  consciousness  of  the  defects  of  the  poem,  and  from  a 
knowledge  that  many  persons  had  been  much  displeased 
with  it.  The  Poem  of  my  Friend  has  indeed  great 
defects;  first,  that  the  principal  person  has  no  distinct 
character,  either  in  his  profession  of  Mariner,  or  as  a 
human  being  who  having  been  long  under  the  control  of 
supernatural  impressions  might  be  supposed  himself  to 
partake  of  something  supernatural;  secondly,  that  he 
does  not  act,  but  is  continually  acted  upon;  thirdly, 
that  the  events,  having  no  necessary  connection,  do  not 
produce  each  other;  and  lastly,  that  the  imagery  is  some- 
what too  laboriously  accumulated.  Yet  the  Poem  con- 
tains many  delicate  touches  of  passion,  and  indeed  the 
passion  is  everywhere  true  to  nature;  a  great  number 
of  the  stanzas  present  beautiful  images  and  are  ex- 
pressed with  unusual  felicity  of  language;  and  the 
versification,  though  the  metre  is  itself  unfit  for  long 
poems,  is  harmonious  and  artfully  varied,  exhibiting 
the  utmost  powers  of  that  metre,  and  every  variety  of 
which  it  is  capable.  It  therefore  appeared  to  me  that 
these  several  merits  (the  first  of  which,  namely,  that  of 
the  passion,  is  of  the  highest  kind)  gave  to  the  poem  a 
value  which  is  not  often  possessed  by  better  poems. 
On  this  account  J  requested  of  my  Friend  to  permit  me 
to  republish  it."  ' 

No  doubt  this  was  printed  with  Coleridge's  consent, 
but  he,  kind  soul,  would  have  been  willing  to  make  a 
public  confession  of  still  graver  defects.  Charles  Lamb, 
it  is  refreshing  to  know,  took  up  the  cudgels  for  him, 
and,  replying  to  Wordsworth  point  by  point,  in  a  letter 


416  WORDSWORTH  THE  CRITIC     [chap,  xvi 

written  immediately  after  the  volume  was  published, 
concludes:  "  You  will  excuse  my  remarks,  because  I  am 
hurt  and  vexed  that  you  should  think  it  necessary,  with 
a  prose  apology,  to  open  the  eyes  of  dead  men  that 
cannot  see."* 

How  the  printers  ever  managed  to  get  the  book  out 
is  a  marvel.  The  manuscript  came  to  them  piecemeal 
in  the  handwriting  of  the  two  poets  and  Dorothy,  not 
to  mention  Sara  Hutchinson,  who  was  staying  at  Town- 
end  ;  the  punctuation  was  done  in  part  by  Coleridge 
and  in  part  by  Humphry  Davy  at  Bristol;  there  were 
numerous  changes  of  text,  and  some  pages  were  can- 
celled. The  authors  were  in  the  Lake  country,  the 
printers  in  the  West,  the  publishers  in  London.  Yet  it 
appeared,  not  more  than  a  month  behind  time,  in 
January,  1801. 

Recluse  though  he  was,  Wordsworth  had  a  way  of 
bursting  into  the  arena  of  public  life  when  he  saw  a  fit 
occasion.  His  zeal  for  the  welfare  of  his  country  never 
slackened,  and  he  was  not  restrained  by  false  humility, 
feeling  himself  entitled  by  power  of  intellect  to  address 
whomsoever  he  chose.  He  sent  a  copy  of  the  new  work 
to  the  great  Whig  statesman,  Charles  James  Fox,  who 
had  temporarily  withdrawn  from  politics,  and  was  in- 
dulging himself  in  an  immense  feast  of  ancient  and 
modern  literature.  The  gift  was  accompanied  with  a 
long  letter,  dated  January  14,  1801.  In  this  Words- 
worth boldly  affirms  his  confidence  that  he  has  per- 
formed one  of  the  noblest  functions  of  a  poet:  he  has 
done  public  service  by  revealing  the  instincts  and  prin- 
ciples of  one  set  of  men  to  another;  he  has,  as  we  should 
now  say,  in  the  words  of  Tolstoi,  "  made  that  under- 
stood and  felt  which,  in  the  form  of  an  argument,  might 
be  incomprehensible  and  inaccessible,"  and  thereby 
"  united  people."  The  letter  not  only  shows  this  high 
consciousness  of  religious  performance,  but  is  remark- 
able also  as  indicating  a  shift  in  the  author's  political 
point  of  view.  Among  the  sources  of  distress  and  moral 
degradation  he  no  longer  mentions  militarism,  and  the 

*"  The  Letters  of  Charles  Lamb,"  edited  by  Caron  Ainger,  Vol.  I.,  p.  164. 


i8oi]  LETTER  TO  C  J.  FOX  417 

Tory  measures  which  drew  forth  his  denunciation  seven 
years  before;  it  is  now  rather  the  evils  of  industrialism 
and  their  false  palliatives  which  he  attacks,  and  it  is 
plain  that  the  new  Whiggery  will  not  meet  with  his 
approval.  And  no  wonder;  for  the  workhouse  in  1800 
was  as  horrible  as  the  factory. 

"  Recently,"  declares  Wordsworth,  "  by  the  spread- 
ing of  manufactures  through  every  part  of  the  country, 
by  the  heavy  taxes  upon  postage,  by  workhouses,  houses 
of  industry,  and  the  invention  of  soup-shops,  etc.,  super- 
added to  the  increasing  disproportion  between  the  price 
of  labour  and  that  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  the  bonds 
of  domestic  feeling  among  the  poor,  as  far  as  the  influ- 
ence of  these  things  has  extended,  have  been  weakened, 
and  in  innumerable  instances  entirely  destroyed."  And 
he  adds  :  "  In  the  two  poems,  The  Brothers,  and  Michael, 
I  have  attempted  to  draw  a  picture  of  the  domestic 
affections,  as  I  know  they  exist  among  a  class  of  men 
who  are  now  almost  confined  to  the  north  of  England. 
They  are  small  independent  proprietors  of  land,  here 
called  statesmen,  men  of  respectable  education,  who 
daily  labour  on  their  own  properties.  The  domestic 
affections  will  always  be  strong  amongst  men  who  live 
in  a  country  not  crowded  with  population,  if  these  men 
are  placed  above  poverty.  But  if  they  are  proprietors 
of  small  estates,  which  have  descended  to  them  from 
their  ancestors,  the  power  which  these  affections  will 
acquire  amongst  such  men  is  inconceivable  by  those 
who  have  only  had  an  opportunity  of  observing  hired 
labourers,  farmers,  and  the  manufacturing  poor.  Their 
little  tract  of  land  serves  as  a  kind  of  permanent  rally- 
ing-point  for  their  domestic  feeings,  as  a  tablet  upon 
which  they  are  written,  which  makes  them  objects  of 
memory  in  a  thousand  instances,  when  they  would 
otherwise  be  forgotten.  It  is  a  fountain  fitted  to  the 
nature  of  social  man,  from  which  supplies  of  affection, 
as  pure  as  his  heart  was  intended  for,  are  daily  drawn. 
This  class  of  men  is  rapidly  disappearing.  You,  Sir, 
have  a  consciousness,  upon  which  every  good  man  will 
congratulate  you,  that  the  whole  of  your  public  conduct 
has,  in  one  way  or  other,  been  directed  to  the  preserva- 
tion of  this  class  of  men,  and  those  who  hold  similar 
situations.  You  have  felt  that  the  most  sacred  of  all 
property  is  the  property  of  the  poor.  The  two  poems, 
1.  27 


418  WORDSWORTH  THE  CRITIC     [chap.xvii 

which  I  have  mentioned,  were  written  with  a  view  to 
show  that  men  who  do  not  wear  fine  clothes  can  feel 
deeply.  '  Pectus  enim  est  quod  disertos  facit,  et  vis 
mentis.  Ideoque  imperitis  quoque,  si  modo  sint  aliquo 
affectu  concitati,  verba  non  desunt.'  The  poems  are 
faithful  copies  from  nature ;  and  I  hope  whatever  effect 
they  may  have  upon  you,  you  will  at  least  be  able  to 
perceive  that  they  may  excite  profitable  sympathies  in 
many  kind  and  good  hearts,  and  may  in  some  small 
degree  enlarge  our  feeling  of  reverence  for  our  species, 
and  our  knowledge  of  human  nature,  by  showing  that 
our  best  qualities  are  possessed  by  men  whom  we  are 
too  apt  to  consider,  not  with  reference  to  the  points  in 
which  they  resemble  us,  but  to  those  in  which  they 
manifestly  differ  from  us.  I  thought,  at  a  time  when 
these  feelings  are  sapped  in  so  many  ways,  that  the 
two  poems  might  co-operate,  however  feebly,  with  the 
illustrious  efforts  which  you  have  made  to  stem  this  and 
other  evils  with  which  the  country  is  labouring;  and  it 
is  on  this  account  alone  that  I  have  taken  the  liberty 
of  thus  addressing  you."* 

This  way  of  regarding  poetry  was  thoroughly  charac- 
teristic of  Wordsworth.  It  was  a  new  way,  and  Fox, 
who  thought  the  finest  compositions  of  the  eighteenth 
century  were  Pope's  "  Eloisa,"  Voltaire's  "  Zaire," 
Gray's  "  Elegy,"  and  Metastasio's  "  Isacco,"  failed  to 
see  that  his  correspondent  was  in  earnest;  failed  to  see 
the  point,  that  is,  and  thought  only  of  metre.  In  his 
long-deferred  reply,  dated  May  25,  he  says :  "  The  poems 
have  given  me  the  greatest  pleasure ;  and  if  I  were 
obliged  to  choose  out  of  them,  I  do  not  know  whether 
I  should  not  say  that  '  Harry  Gill,'  '  We  are  Seven,' 
'  The  Mad  Mother,'  and  '  The  Idiot,'  are  my  favourites. 
I  read  with  particular  attention  the  two  you  pointed 
out ;  but  whether  it  be  from  early  prepossessions,  or 
whatever  other  cause,  I  am  no  great  friend  to  blank- 
verse  for  subjects  which  are  to  be  treated  of  with  sim- 
plicity." Evidently  Fox,  contrary  to  popular  opinion, 
did  not  have  his  heart  sufficiently  near  his  head,  for 
Coleridge  had  written  to  Davy  in  December  :f  "  It 
["  Michael  "]  is  of  a  mild,  unimposing  character,  but 

*  "  Memoirs,"  I.  170. 

I  "  Fragmentary  Remains  of  Sir  Humphry  Davy,"  London,  1858,  p.  85. 


i8oi]  LETTER  TO  THOMAS  POOLE  419 

full  of  beauties  to  those  short-necked  men  who  have 
their  hearts  sufficiently  near  their  heads — the  relative 
distance  of  which  (according  to  citizen  Tourder,  the 
French  translator  of  Spallanzani)  determines  the  sagacity 
or  stupidity  of  all  bipeds  and  quadrupeds." 

Coleridge  wrote  to  Poole  in  January  that  by  his  own 
advice,  and  at  Longman's  expense,  copies,  with  appro- 
priate letters,  had  been  sent  to  the  Duchess  of  Devon- 
shire, Sir  Bland  Burgess,  Mrs.  Jordan,  Mr.  Fox,  Mr. 
Wilberforce,  and  two  or  three  others.  He  had  dictated 
all  the  other  letters,  he  declared,  while  Wordsworth 
wrote  the  one  to  Mr.  Fox.  "  I  have  had  that  letter 
transcribed  for  you,"  he  adds,  "  for  its  excellence,  and 
mine  to  Wilberforce,  because  the  two  contain  a  good 
view  of  our  notions  and  motives,  poetical  and  political."* 

No  comment  on  the  poems  of  the  second  volume  could 
disclose  the  poet's  purpose  so  well  as  his  own  account  of 
11  Michael,"  in  a  letter  to  Poole,  dated  April  9. 

"  In  the  last  poem  of  my  2nd  volume,"  he  says,  "  I 
have  attempted  to  give  a  picture  of  a  man,  of  strong 
mind  and  lively  sensibility,  agitated  by  two  of  the  most 
powerful  affections  of  the  human  heart — the  parental 
affection,  and  the  love  of  property,  landed  property, 
including  the  feelings  of  inheritance,  home,  and  per- 
sonal and  family  independence.  This  poem  has,  I  know, 
drawn  tears  from  the  eyes  of  more  than  one — persons 
well  acquainted  with  the  manners  of  the  '  Statesmen,' 
as  they  are  called,  of  this  country;  and,  moreover,  per- 
sons who  never  wept  in  reading  verse  before." 

He  is  anxious,  he  says,  to  know  the  effect  of  the  poem 
on  Poole,  who  himself  possesses  an  inherited  estate  and 
is  familiar  with  the  language,  manners,  and  feeling,  of 
the  middle  order  of  people  who  dwell  in  the  country. 
"  Perhaps  in  England  there  is  no  more  competent  judge 
than  you  must  be  of  the  skill  and  knowledge  with  which 
my  pictures  are  drawn.  I  had  a  still  further  wish  that 
this  poem  should  please  you,  because  in  writing  it  I  had 
your  character  often  before  my  eyes,  and  sometimes 
thought  I  was  delineating  such  a  man  as  you  yourself 
would  have  been  under  the  same  circumstances. "f 

*  "  Thomas  Poole  and  his>  Friends,"  II.  27.  \  Ibid.,  54. 


420  WORDSWORTH  THE  CRITIC     [chap,  xvn 

This  revelation  of  WTordsworth's  concern  for  the  main- 
tenance and  spread  of  the  happiness  based  on  the 
ownership  of  small  homes  helps  us  to  understand  his 
alarm  at  the  growth  of  industrialism.  He  saw  that 
under  the  guise  of  what  were  then  called  liberal  ideas, 
powerful  political  forces,  in  alliance  with  business  in- 
terests, were  luring  the  rural  population  of  England  into 
manufacturing  towns,  breaking  up  families  and  home 
ties,  turning  independent  workers  into  mill  "  hands," 
changing  the  face  of  the  country,  cheapening  life,  and 
diminishing  happiness.  This  explains  much  in  his 
political  philosophy  which  later  appeared  to  be  reac- 
tionary. It  explains  much  of  his  future  distrust  of  what 
younger  or  shallower  men  deemed  progress,  and  it  is 
perfectly  in  harmony  with  his  Revolutionary  zeal  of 
former  years. 

No  one  has  ever  sufficiently  pointed  out  how  much 
solicitude  considerations  of  this  kind  caused  in  the 
hearts  of  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  and  Poole.  To  under- 
stand Wordsworth's  poetry,  it  is  absolutely  necessary 
that  his  views  on  this  subject  should  be  taken  into 
account.  They  were  the  outgrowth  of  close  observa- 
tion and  anxious  sympathy.  He  may  have  been  lack- 
ing in  those  outstanding  qualities  which  enable  some  men 
to  mix  freely  with  persons  of  inferior  education  and 
humbler  station.  Such  persons  perhaps  never  realized 
that  he  appreciated  and  loved  them.  But  to  a  very 
large  extent  he  lived  for  them.  We  have  only  to  think 
of  Goethe,  his  purely  intellectual  and  aesthetic  interests, 
his  careful  system  of  self-protection,  his  aristocratic  ex- 
clusiveness,  to  perceive  that,  in  comparison  with  him, 
Wordsworth  was  the  true  philanthropist.  Yet  Goethe, 
in  a  condescending  hour,  would  probably  have  "  got  on 
better  "  with  humble  people,  and  appeared  more  genial 
than  Wordsworth.  Coleridge  shared  his  friend's  anxiety. 
Lacking  Wordsworth's  consistency  and  self-restraint, 
however,  he  gave  way  to  his  impatience  in  terms  for 
which  even  Poole,  with  his  advanced  ideas,  reproved 
him.  Coleridge  replied  rather  testily  in  a  letter  of 
October  5 :  "  I  own  I  have  formed  long  and  meditative 


i8oi]  SELF-APPRECIATION  421 

habits  of  aversion  to  the  Rich,  love  to  the  Poor  or  the 
wmvealthy,  and  belief  in  the  excessive  evils  arising  from 
Property.  How  is  it  possible,  Poole,  that  you  can  have 
all  these  feelings  ?"*  We  may  be  sure  that  these  topics 
formed  a  frequent  subject  of  conversation  at  Town-end. 

Wordsworth  has  often  been  blamed  for  taking  himself 
seriously  and  appreciating  his  own  poetry  at  its  full 
value.  Very  great  and  very  little  men  are  the  ones  to  give 
offence  by  taking  themselves  seriously,  and  the  objection 
might  be  summarily  dismissed  by  asking  whether 
Wordsworth  was  not,  then,  a  very  great  man.  And 
foreseeing  in  his  poetry  the  excellence  which  wise  readers 
have  more  and  more  come  to  see  in  it,  we  can  only  praise 
his  critical  vision.  Yet  we  may  easily  excuse  even  good 
judges  of  poetry  and  some  of  his  best  friends  for  being 
stunned  by  the  calm  assurance,  not  obtrusive,  yet  abso- 
lutely unyielding,  with  which  he  gave  them  to  under- 
stand that  he  knew  how  great  he  was.  If  he  had  been  in 
London  during  1801  to  hear  the  criticisms  passed  upon 
his  poems,  he  would  no  doubt  have  replied  earnestly 
and  haughtily;  the  number  of  anecdotes  about  his  self- 
esteem  would  have  been  even  larger  than  it  is.  Even 
only  a  year  later,  his  reputation  was  somewhat  estab- 
lished, and  he  ran  less  risk  of  hearing  absurdly  unintelli- 
gent judgments.  These  reflections,  and,  it  must  be 
admitted,  a  wish  that  he  might  have  had  a  lighter  touch 
in  referring  to  himself — just  so  much  tact  as  should  not 
have  been  inconsistent  with  sincerity — come  to  one  who 
reads  Charles  Lamb's  letter  to  him,  dated  by  Mr.  Lucas 
January  30,  i8oi,f  and  Lamb's  comments  to  his  friend 
Manning  on  his  letters  from  Wordsworth  in  that  year. 
Lamb  thought  Wordsworth  vain  and  pompous  in  his 
remarks  about  "  Lyrical  Ballads."  What  seemed  to 
him  most  ridiculous  was  the  poet's  eagerness  to  know  his 
opinion  of  the  book,  taken  in  connection  with  what 
appeared  to  be  an  effort  at  lofty  indifference. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  Wordsworth's  letters  made 

*   "  Thomas  Poole  and  his  Friends,"  II.  69. 

f   E.  V.  Lucas,  "  The  Works  of  Charles  and  Mary  Lamb,"  VI. ,  pp.  208, 
212,  and  215. 


422  WORDSWORTH  THE  CRITIC     [chap.xvii 

him  fair  game  for  Lamb's  sarcasm,  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  Lamb  would  have  overlooked  Wordsworth's  weak- 
ness had  he  at  that  time  appreciated  the  poems.  Lamb's 
letters  are  in  his  liveliest  manner.  If  he  shows  him- 
self less  kindly  than  usual,  it  is  probably  because  the 
provocation  was  really  too  much.  Unfortunately  they 
cannot  be  reprinted  here.  He  praises  certain  lines  and 
more  than  one  delicate  touch,  but  shows  no  sign  of  being 
impressed  with  the  sincerity  and  simplicity  of  the 
general  treatment.  He  makes  a  remark  which  even  the 
most  enthusiastic  lovers  of  Wordsworth's  poetry  have 
generally  found  applicable — namely,  that  sometimes 
"  the  instructions  conveyed  in  it  are  too  direct  and  like  a 
lecture."  He  was  referring  to  "  The  Old  Cumberland 
Beggar,"  but  the  criticism  might  be  extended.  He 
wishes  the  critical  preface  had  appeared  in  a  separate 
treatise,  and  for  the  good  reason  that  it  gives  to  the 
poems  an  appearance  of  "  having  been  written  for 
Experiment  on  the  public  taste,  more  than  having  sprung 
(as  they  must  have  done)  from  living  and  daily  circum- 
stances." Referring  to  an  invitation  to  Grasmere,  he 
says  :  "  With  you  and  your  Sister  I  could  gang  anywhere. 
But  I  am  afraid  whether  I  shall  ever  be  able  to  afford 
so  desperate  a  Journey.  Separate  from  the  pleasure  of 
your  company,  I  don't  much  care  if  I  never  see  a  moun- 
tain in  my  life."  And  then  follows  a  brilliant  description 
of  the  street-life  of  London,  concluding  with  the 
challenge : 

"  Have  I  not  enough  without  your  mountains  ?  I 
do  not  envy  you.  I  should  pity  you,  did  I  not  know 
that  the  Mind  will  make  friends  of  anything.  Your  sun 
and  moon  and  skys  and  hills  and  lakes  affect  me  no 
more,  or  scarcely  come  to  me  in  more  venerable  char- 
acters, than  as  a  gilded  room  with  tapestry  and  tapers, 
where  I  might  live  with  handsome  visible  objects.  I 
consider  the  clouds  above  me  but  as  a  roof,  beautifully 
painted,  but  unable  to  satisfy  the  mind,  and  at  last, 
like  the  pictures  of  the  apartment  of  a  connoisseur, 
unable  to  afford  him  any  longer  a  pleasure.  So  fading 
upon  me,  from  disuse,  have  been  the  Beauties  of  Nature, 
as  they  have  been  confinedly  called ;  so  ever  fresh  and 


t8oi]  LAMB'S  MISGIVINGS  423 

green   and   warm   are   all   the  inventions   of  men   and 
assemblies  of  men  in  this  great  city." 

We  can  form  an  idea  of  Wordsworth's  reply  only  from 
Lamb's  merry  references  to  it  in  a  letter  to  Manning, 
but  it  was  no  doubt  very  solemn.  Coleridge,  too,  he 
says,  who  had  not  written  to  him  for  months,  started 
from  his  bed  of  sickness  to  reprove  him  for  his  hardy 
presumption. 

When  once  this  bad  beginning  was  over,  the  poems 
won  their  way  into  Lamb's  heart  of  hearts,  in  spite  of  his 
professed  dislike  for  the  country  and,  what  was  more 
formidable,  his  taste  for  romance,  for  the  quaint,  the 
curious,  the  unusual,  in  phraseology  and  feeling.  And, 
of  course,  there  were  no  dregs  of  personal  ill-will.  Lamb 
continued  to  think,  as  he  had  said  to  Lloyd  the  year 
before,  that  such  men  as  Coleridge  and  Wordsworth 
"  would  exclude  solitude  in  the  Hebrides  or  Thule." 

It  will  be  well  at  this  point  to  consider,  in  connection 
with  one  another,  the  Prefaces  to  the  different  editions 
of  "  Lyrical  Ballads,"  and  certain  letters  which  passed 
between  the  poet  and  John  Wilson  (Christopher  North), 
at  that  time  a  student  in  Glasgow  University.  The 
Preface  of  1798  began  with  a  bold  challenge: 

"  It  is  the  honourable  characteristic  of  poetry  that  its 
materials  are  to  be  found  in  every  subject  which  can 
interest  the  human  mind.  The  evidence  of  this  fact  is 
to  be  sought,  not  in  the  writings  of  Critics,  but  in  those 
of  Poets  themselves.  The  majority  of  the  following 
poems  are  to  be  considered  as  experiments.  They  were 
written  chiefly  with  a  view  to  ascertain  how  far  the 
language  of  conversation  in  the  middle  and  lower  classes 
of  society  is  adapted  to  the  purposes  of  poetic  pleasure. 
Readers  accustomed  to  the  gaudiness  and  inane  phrase- 
ology of  many  modern  writers,  if  they  persist  in  reading 
this  book  to  its  conclusion,  will  perhaps  frequently  have 
to  struggle  with  feelings  of  strangeness  and  awkward- 
ness :  they  will  look  round  for  poetry  and  will  be  induced 
to  inquire  by  what  species  of  courtesy  these  attempts 
can  be  permitted  to  assume  that  title.  It  is  desirable 
that  such  readers,  for  their  own  sakes,  should  not  suffer 
the  solitary  word  Poetry,  a  word  of  very  disputed  mean- 


424  WORDSWORTH  THE  CRITIC     [chap.xvii 

ing,  to  stand  in  the  way  of  their  gratification ;  but  that, 
while  they  are  perusing  this  book,  they  should  ask  them- 
selves if  it  contains  a  natural  delineation  of  human  pas- 
sions, human  characters,  and  human  incidents;  and  if 
the  answer  be  favourable  to  the  author's  wishes,  that 
they  should  consent  to  be  pleased  in  spite  of  that  most 
dreadful  enemy  to  our  pleasures,  our  own  pre-established 
codes  of  decision." 

Fault  was  found  with  "  We  are  Seven  "  and  "  Anec- 
dote for  Fathers,"  on  the  ground  that  the  incidents  they 
recorded  were  insignificant;  with  "  Simon  Lee  "  for  the 
simplicity  of  its  language;  with  "  The  Idiot  Boy  " 
because  its  subject  was  strange  and  supposedly  not 
capable  of  imparting  pleasure.  Readers  accustomed  to 
what  Tolstoi  calls  "  esoteric  "  art — that  is,  art  for  which 
a  special  and  unnatural  taste  has  had  to  be  fostered — 
were  inclined  to  call  the  whole  collection  "  disgusting." 
Some  were  repelled  by  the  "  lowness  "  of  the  characters; 
it  was  thought  paradoxical  to  attribute  fineness  of 
feeling  or  heroic  strength  of  passion  to  persons  of  humble 
rank.  These  objections,  combining  in  varying  pro- 
portions, were  urged  by  Wordsworth's  friends,  and  were 
stated,  as  we  have  seen,  in  the  reviews.  Wordsworth's 
convictions  were  not  shaken  nor  was  his  courage  abated 
by  these  unfavourable  judgments.  But  he  learned  that 
it  was  necessary  to  educate  the  public,  not  merely  by 
example,  but  by  precept,  and  that  it  would  be  well  to 
set  forth  his  literary  principles  much  more  elaborately 
than  he  had  done  before.  With  severe  toil  he  produced 
a  second  Preface,  more  than  twelve  times  as  long  as  the 
first.  In  this  he  advanced  what  almost  amounts  to  a 
systematic  theory  of  poetic  art.  It  is  certainly,  with 
the  possible  exception  of  Sidney's  "  Defence  of  Poesie," 
the  most  eloquent,  as  it  is  without  rival  the  most  weighty, 
treatise  on  the  subject  in  our  language.  Although  the 
specific  application  of  his  views  makes  the  work  here 
and  there,  and  particularly  in  the  latter  part,  appear 
less  general  than  if  they  had  been  embodied  in  a  formal 
essay,  there  is  really  no  lack  of  largeness.  The  Preface 
is  much  more  than  an  introduction  to  "  Lyrical  Ballads," 


i8oi]  THEORY  OF  POETIC  DICTION  425 

It  is  an  exposition  of  the  fundamental  laws  of  association 
as  applied  in  poetry.  It  announces  not  only  Words- 
worth's theory  of  poetic  diction,  though  that  would  be 
a  notable  performance,  for  Wordsworth's  theory  of  poetic 
diction  has  given  a  fresh  texture  to  nearly  all  English 
poetry  for  the  last  hundred  years ;  but  it  heralds  one  of 
the  most  splendid  triumphs  of  democracy.  Wordsworth 
vindicated  a  levelling-up  process  in  two  particulars :  the 
choice  of  language  and  the  choice  of  subjects.  When 
the  poems  and  the  prefaces  were  new,  they  seemed 
startling  innovations;  we  have  grown  so  accustomed  to 
their  results  that  now  they  do  not  sufficiently  impress 
us.  We  fail  to  take  them  quite  seriously,  as  they  were 
intended  to  be  taken.  Yet  the  theory  is  scarcely  to  be 
distinguished  from  Tolstoi's,  and  its  most  complete 
illustration  is  to  be  found  in  "  Leaves  of  Grass." 

Wordsworth  was  not  the  man  to  abandon  a  position 
because  it  was  attacked.  But  he  recognized,  and  prob- 
ably was  persuaded  by  Coleridge,  that  his  phrase  about 
"  the  language  of  conversation  in  the  middle  and  lower 
classes  of  society  "  needed  to  be  considerably  modified. 
Accordingly,  in  the  first  paragraph  of  the  second  Preface, 
he  makes  a  more  accurate  statement : 

"  The  first  volume  of  these  Poems  has  already  been 
submitted  to  general  perusal.  It  was  published  as  an 
experiment,  which,,  I  hoped,  might  be  of  some  use  to 
ascertain  how  far,  by  fitting  to  metrical  arrangement  a 
selection  of  the  real  language  of  men  in  a  state  of  vivid 
sensation,  that  sort  of  pleasure  and  that  quantity  of 
pleasure  may  be  imparted  which  a  Poet  may  rationally 
endeavour  to  impart." 

Here  is,  of  course,  an  immense  difference.  The 
validity  of  the  earlier  statement  could  have  been  dis- 
proved from  the  poems  themselves.  The  latter  state- 
ment accurately  describes  the  language  of  the  best  poetry 
in  all  ages.  Neither  Wordsworth  nor  Tolstoi  calls  for  a 
new  kind  of  poetry.  They  distinguish  universal  art, 
which  interprets  the  deep  experiences  common  to  man- 
kind in  terms  commonly  understood,  from  esoteric  and 
decadent  art,  which  is  limited  in  its  source,  its  medium, 


426  WORDSWORTH  THE  CRITIC     [chap.xvh 

and  its  appeal.  Yet  so  corrupted  had  the  taste  of  many 
readers  of  poetry  become,  that  the  fit  audience  were  very 
few. 

It  has  been  taken  for  granted  generally  that  the 
taste  for  English  poetry  was  peculiarly  depraved  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  I  doubt  if  it  is  not  still  and  has  not 
always  been  the  case,  that  simplicity  and  realism  shock 
before  they  please  those  persons  who  have  received  the 
sort  of  education  that  removes  them,  in  knowledge, 
from  the  mass  of  their  fellow-men.  Certain  influences 
had  been  at  work  since  the  time  of  Shakespeare  to  widen 
this  gap.  The  Anglican  clergy  had  been  drawn  increas- 
ingly from  the  upper  classes,  and  educated  at  the  uni- 
versities to  an  extent  unknown  in  pre-Reformation  times. 
A  certain  tincture  of  classical  learning  had  become  one 
of  the  pretensions  of  the  masters  of  the  land.  The  uni- 
versities themselves  had  lost  touch  with  actuality  by 
giving  up  in  large  measure  the  practical  side  of  their  work. 
Since  the  Middle  Ages,  they  had  been  frequented,  in 
increased  proportion,  by  men  with  no  professional  career 
in  view,  whose  object  in  attending  them  was  to  obtain 
general  culture  or  social  polish.  This  is  not  to  say  that 
the  culture  and  polish  were  not  real,  or  that  the  spreading 
of  literary  taste  among  the  upper  classes  was  not 
extremely  valuable  to  the  nation.  But  the  taste  was  for 
qualities  beyond  the  scope  of  readers  not  thus  trained 
and  privileged.  It  preferred  the  antique  to  the 
modern,  perhaps  justly,  but  with  exaggeration  of  the 
difference  between  them,  and  so  blandly  and  com- 
placently as  to  make  innovation  appear  impudent. 
Classicism  means  the  establishment  of  standards.  The 
standard  of  poetic  diction  had  been  profoundly  and 
unfortunately  modified  by  a  caste.  Wordsworth  real- 
ized this,  and  knew  that  his  appreciative  readers  would 
be  those  few  persons  among  the  educated  who  were 
original  enough  to  read  with  their  own  eyes.  "  I  had 
formed,"  he  says  in  the  second  Preface,  "  no  very  inac- 
curate estimate  of  the  probable  effect  of  these  Poems :  I 
flattered  myself  that  they  who  should  be  pleased  with 
them  would  read  them  with  more  than  common  pleasure ; 


i8oi]  LANGUAGE  OF  REAL  LIFE  427 

and,  on  the  other  hand,  I  was  well  aware  that  by  those 
who  should  dislike  them  they  would  be  read  with  more 
than  common  dislike.  The  result  has  differed  from  my 
expectation  in  this  only,  that  a  greater  number  have 
been  pleased  than  I  ventured  to  hope  I  should  please." 
He  declines  to  undertake  a  systematic  defence  of  the 
theory  upon  which  the  poems  were  written,  but  admits 
that  "  there  would  be  something  like  impropriety  in 
abruptly  obtruding  upon  the  Public,  without  a  few 
words  of  introduction,  Poems  so  materially  different 
from  those  upon  which  general  approbation  is  at  present 
bestowed." 

The  general  opinion  no  doubt  was,  and  perhaps  on  a 
lower  plane  still  is,  that  poetry  is  an  art  of  decoration, 
that  poetry  adds  something  to  nature  by  way  of  im- 
provement. The  idea  was  well  expressed  by  Cowper  in 
his  "  Tyrocinium,"  where,  speaking  of  the  soul  of  man, 
he  says : 

For  her  the  Fancy,  roving  unconfined. 
The  present  Muse  of  every  pensive  mind, 
Works  magic  wonders,  adds  a  brighter  hue 
To  Nature's  scenes,  than  Nature  ever  knew. 

He  did  not  hesitate,  therefore,  to  write  of  "  feathered 
tribes  domestic  "  when  he  meant  hens.  Nor  did  Thom- 
son probably  dream  that  he  was  not  really  compliment- 
ing nature  when  he  wrote : 

Oh,  stretched  amid  these  orchards  of  the  sun. 
Give  me  to  drain  the  cocoa's  milky  bowl, 
And  from  the  palm  to  draw  its  freshening  wine, 
More  bounteous  far  than  all  the  frantic  juice 
Which  Bacchus  pours. 

A  needle  in  Cowper's  unroughened  hands  becomes 
"  the  threaded  steel."  A  thick  mist  is  a  "  frequent  " 
mist,  because  in  the  Latin  spices  much  poetry  is  em- 
balmed. Thomson  for  the  same  reason  treats  us  to 
11  gelid  "  and  "  gravid  "  and  "  turgent."  And  it  was 
no  less  authoritative  a  critic  than  Gray  who  wrote : 

"  The  language  of  the  age  is  never  the  language  of 
poetry;  except  among  the  French ,^whose  verse,  where 


428  WORDSWORTH  THE  CRITIC     [chap,  xvn 

the  thought  or  image  does  not  support  it,  differs  in 
nothing  from  prose.  Our  poetry,  on  the  contrary,  has 
a  language  peculiar  to  itself;  to  which  almost  everyone 
that  has  written  has  added  something  by  enriching  it 
with  foreign  idioms  and  derivatives — nay,  sometimes 
words  of  their  own  composition  or  invention.  Shake- 
speare and  Milton  have  been  great  creators  this  way; 
and  no  one  more  licentious  than  Pope  or  Dryden,  who 
perpetually  borrow  expressions  from  the  former.  .  .  . 
Our  language  not  being  a  settled  thing  (like  the  French) 
has  an  undoubted  right  to  words  of  an  hundred  years 
old,  provided  antiquity  have  not  rendered  them  un- 
intelligible "  ("  On  Poetic  Diction,"  p.  121,  edition  of 
1827). 

A  candid  reader  will  not  deny  that  most  of  the  poems 
in  the  edition  of  1800  agree  very  accurately  with  the 
following  statement : 

"  The  principal  object  proposed  in  these  Poems  was 
to  choose  incidents  and  situations  from  common  life, 
and  to  relate  or  describe  them,  throughout,  as  far  as 
was  possible  in  a  selection  of  language  really  used  by 
men,  and,  at  the  same  time,  to  throw  over  them  a  cer- 
tain colouring  of  imagination,  whereby  ordinary  things 
should  be  presented  to  the  mind  in  an  unusual  aspect; 
and,  further,  and  above  all,  to  make  these  incidents  and 
situations  interesting  by  tracing  in  them,  truly  though 
not  ostentatiously,  the  primary  laws  of  our  nature: 
chiefly,  as  far  as  regards  the  manner  in  which  we  asso- 
ciate ideas  in  a  state  of  excitement." 

It  is  obvious  at  a  glance  that  five  different  purposes 
are  mentioned  in  this  declaration.  The  connection 
between  them  is  not  so  obvious.  First  we  have  the 
choice  of  incidents  and  situations .  In  making  this  choice 
from  common  life  Wordsworth  was,  of  course,  doing  only 
what  English  poets  in  every  age  had  done,  though  few 
had  done  it  so  systematically.  Then,  the  medium  is  to 
be  a  selection  of  the  language  really  used  by  men,  and 
such  language  is  to  be  employed  throughout  ;  there  are 
to  be  no  deviations.  The  crude  statement  of  the  first 
Preface  is  here  considerably  modified,  but  the  principle 
is  unchanged.  \ Commonness  and  reality  are  still  the 


i8oi]  COMMONNESS  AND  REALITY  429 

essentials.  But  common  life  might  be  faithfully  de- 
lineated in  a  selection  of  the  language  really  used  by 
men,  and  the  result  might  have  merely  a  scientific  value ; 
it  might  be  devoid  of  every  quality  peculiar  to  poetry. 
This  contingency  is  provided  against  by  the  faintly 
proffered  proposal  to  throw  over  his  subjects'"  a  certain 
colouring  of  imagination,  whereby  ordinary  things 
should  be  presented  to  the  mind  in  an  unusual  aspect." 
The  subordinate  place  of  this  proposition  and  the 
curiously  guarded  way  in  which  it  is  made  show  how 
tenacious  Wordsworth  was  of  his  main  purpose — to 
preserve  reality.  There  is  here  no  compromise  with 
artificiality,  with  the  fanciful,  the  romantic.  "  Ordinary 
things,"  not  chimaeras  or  fairies,  not  personifications,  not 
even  rarities  of  nature,  are  to  be  presented  to  the  mind ; 
and  although  the  aspect  shall  be  unusual,  it  shall  not 
be  unnatural.  To  perceive  the  naturalness  of  the 
unusual,  and  that  ordinary  things  are  always  interesting, 
is  the  personal  trait  of  a  poet.  If  he  would  become  an 
artist  and  make  other  men  see  with  his  eyes,  he  must 
rouse  them  by  means  of  unusual  cases.  His  own  under- 
standing of  life  would  be  almost  as  complete  without 
these. 

The  relation  of  the  unusual  to  poetic  art  was  a  subject 
that  had  been  much  discussed  with  Coleridge  at  Alfoxden. 
Wordsworth's  own  discovery  and  decision,  as  regards 
the  choice  of  subjects  from  common  life  and  the  choice 
of  language  really  used  by  men,  were  made  by  himself, 
before  he  met  Coleridge.  The  vagueness  and  fluidity 
of  the  third  phrase  we  are  now  discussing,  the  very 
words  "  certain  "  and  "  unusual,"  and  "  aspect,"  are 
Coleridgean.  This  part  of  the  proposal  takes  us  back 
to  the  day  when  the  idea  which  bore  fruit  in  "  Lyrical 
Ballads,"  was  first  conceived.  The  poems  were  to  be 
weird.  At  that  point  Wordsworth  had  yielded  to  the 
persuasive  talk  of  his  new  friend.  Left  to  his  own 
impulses,  he  would  not,  at  that  time,  have  entertained 
such  a  plan.  "  The  Idiot  Boy  "  appears  to  me  to  have 
been  composed  in  an  effort  to  furnish  a  counterpart  in 
weirdness  to  the  "  Ancient  Mariner."     Partly  successful 


43o  WORDSWORTH  THE  CRITIC     [chap,  xvn 

as  it  is,  in  a  curious  and  rare  kind,  it  nevertheless  proves 
that  Wordsworth  was  happier  in  the  search  for  unusual 
aspects  of  ordinary  things  when  he  made  the  effort  in 
his  own  way  and  not  in  the  manner  so  gloriously  used  by 
Coleridge.  Another  subject  the  friends  had  often  dis- 
cussed in  Somersetshire  was  the  possibility  of  giving 
in  poetry  something  like  a  systematic  illustration  of 
mental  science.  Here  again,  of  course,  the  influence  of 
Coleridge  predominated;  and  when  Wordsworth,  in 
the  fourth  part  of  this  complex  declaration,  says  that 
he  proposes  "  to  make  these  incidents  and  situations 
interesting  by  tracing  in  them,  truly  though  not  ostenta- 
tiously, the  primary  laws  of  our  nature,"  we  may  feel 
sure  that  such  an  idea  and  such  a  formal  expression  of 
it  would  never  have  come  to  him  had  he  not  still  been, 
in  psychology,  dependent  upon  Coleridge.  Even  with 
Wordsworth's  psychological  classification  of  his  poems 
before  us,  with  his  emphatic  distinction  between  imagina- 
tion and  fancy,  we  yet  feel  that  there  was  something 
not  spontaneous  and  natural  about  all  this.  Having 
once  adopted,  with  Coleridge's  assistance,  a  doctrinaire 
habit  of  classifying  his  impulses,  he  would  be  likely  to 
turn  it  to  great  account  and  hold  fast  to  it.  Coleridge, 
on  the  other  hand,  might  fail,  years  later,  to  recognize 
the  child  of  his  own  fertile  brain.  Wordsworth  developed 
the  thought  that  lay  in  the  word  "  primary,"  and  for 
this  the  credit  is  fully  his  own. 

One  may  or  not  may  be  disappointed  in  the  search 
for  a  systematic  illustration,  in  his  poetry,  of  the  quali- 
ties or  functions  of  the  mind;  in  one  respect,  however, 
the  service  has  been  very  thoroughly  rendered:  Words- 
worth distinguishes  what  is  "  primary  "  in  human 
nature  from  what  is  not.  He  perceives  what  are  "  those 
first  affections,"  both  in  time  and  strength,  which  under- 
lie human  feeling;  he  exalts  them  as  no  other  poet  ever 
has  done.  The  fifth  part  of  the  proposal  is  even  more 
doctrinal  and  Coleridgean  than  the  fourth :  the  primary 
laws  of  our  nature  are  to  be  traced  "  chiefly  as  far  as 
regards  the  manner  in  which  we  associate  ideas  in  a 
state  of  excitement."     Yet  it  cannot  be  denied  that 


i8oi]         THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  POETRY  431 

the  theory  is  amply  practised  in  such  poems  as"  Ruth," 
"  Lucy  Gray,"  and  "  Michael."  Poetry  is  full  of 
illustrations  of  this  principle;  but  where  shall  a  more 
startling  one  be  found  than  in  these  two  stanzas  ? 

My  horse  moved  on  !  hoof  after  hoof 

He  raised,  and  never  stopped : 
When  down  behind  the  cottage  roof, 

At  once,  the  bright  moon  dropped. 

What  fond  and  wayward  thoughts  will  slide 

Into  a  Lover's  head  ! 
"  O  Mercy  !"  to  myself  I  cried, 

"  If  Lucy  should  be  dead  !" 

In  this  proposal  no  mention  is  made  of  verse,  and, 
indeed,  verse  is  treated  in  the  whole  composition  as  a 
subordinate  feature.  The  author  speaks  with  scorn  of 
those  poets  who  "  separate  themselves  from  the  sym- 
pathies of  men,  and  indulge  in  arbitrary  and  capricious 
habits  of  expression,  in  order  to  furnish  food  for  fickle 
tastes  and  fickle  appetites,  of  their  own  creation." 
To  associate  decadent  art  with  its  cause — i.e.,  with  the 
artist's  estrangement  from  his  fellow-men — was  to  antici- 
pate Tolstoi  in  the  central  and  most  characteristic  point 
of  his  teaching. 

"  All  good  poetry,"  Wordsworth  continues,  "  is  the 
spontaneous  overflow  of  powerful  feeling";  yet  the 
greatest  poets  have  been  men  who,  "  being  possessed 
of  more  than  usual  organic  sensibility,"  have  thought 
long  and  deeply.  Our  thoughts  are  "  the  representa- 
tives of  all  our  past  feelings."  These  poems  are  dis- 
tinguished, he  says,  from  the  poetry  of  the  day  by  the 
fact  that  "  the  feeling  therein  developed  gives  importance 
to  the  action  and  situation,"  and  not  the  reverse.  He 
declares  that  "  the  human  mind  is  capable  of  being 
excited  without  the  application  of  gross  and  violent 
stimulants ;  and  he  must  have  a  very  faint  perception 
of  its  beauty  and  dignity  who  does  not  know  this,  and 
who  does  not  further  know  that  one  being  is  elevated 
above  another  as  he  possesses  this  capability."  As 
causes  operating  to  blunt  the  sensibilities  of  men,  he 
mentions  the  great  national  events  which  were  then 


_j 


432  WORDSWORTH  THE  CRITIC     [chap,  xvn 

taking  place  and  the  growth  of  cities.  Men  sought  to 
relieve  the  monotony  of  their  daily  lives  by  reading 
accounts  of  extraordinary  incidents,  thus  losing  their 
taste  for  nature  and  literature.  The  secret  of  his 
style  he  sums  up  in  a  phrase,  brief,  exact,  and  com- 
prehensive: "  I  have  at  all  times  endeavoured  to  look 
steadily  at  my  subject."  This  does  not  mean  that  he 
professed  to  pay  no  attention  to  style.  He  achieved 
style,  and  achieved  it  laboriously,  by  seeking  a  true 
and  sufficient  verbal  representation  of  his  subject. 
He  deplores  the  separation  between  prose  and  metrical 
composition  in  so  far  as  the  so-called  poetic  diction  has 
stood  between  writers  and  the  realities  they  wished  to 
express.  The  true  distinction,  he  says,  lies  between 
poetry  and  matter  of  fact,  or  science,  and  not  between 
poetry  and  prose.  As  he  proceeds  in  his  argument 
his  high  sense  of  the  value  of  poetry  discloses  itself. 
The  poet,  he  declares,  is  "  a  man  endowed  with  more 
lively  sensibility,  more  enthusiasm  and  tenderness,  who 
has  a  greater  knowledge  of  human  nature,  and  a  more 
comprehensive  soul,  than  are  supposed  to  be  common 
among  mankind;  a  man  pleased  with  his  own  passions 
and  volitions,  and  who  rejoices  more  than  other  men 
in  the  spirit  of  life  that  is  in  him;  delighting  to  con- 
template similar  volitions  and  passions  as  manifested 
in  the  goings-on  of  the  Universe,  and  habitually  im- 
pelled to  create  them  where  he  does  not  find  them." 

The  poet,  as  Wordsworth  conceives  him,  is  not  merely 
a  passive  instrument  of  nature.  Not  Wordsworth 
but  Shelley  it  is  who  sings : 

Make  me  thy  lyre,  even  as  the  forest  is. 

Memory  trained  to  service,  and  an  active  power  of 
sympathy,  are  parts  of  the  poet's  endowment.  They 
do  not  require  immediate  external  excitement,  but 
can  evoke  things  absent  and  conjure  up  passions  re- 
sembling those  produced  by  real  events.  Many  philos- 
ophers have  hesitated  to  admit  that  the  giving,  of 
pleasure  is  the  purpose  of  poetry.  Wordsworth,  it  is 
surprising  to  observe,  in  spite  of  the  ethical  and  in- 


i8oij  THE  GREAT  PREFACE  433 

forming  character  of  his  own  poetry,  never  questions 
this  principle.  The  object  of  poetry,  he  says,  is  truth, 
but  "  the  poet  writes  under  one  restriction  only,  namely, 
the  necessity  of  giving  immediate  pleasure  to  a  human 
being  possessed  of  that  information  which  may  be 
expected  from  him,  not  as  a  lawyer,  a  physician,  a 
mariner,  an  astronomer,  or  a  natural  philosopher;  but 
as  a  Man."  He  extends  the  principle  much  further, 
lifting  the  hedonistic  element  above  the  mists  and  mire 
of  selfishness  and  setting  it  upon  a  level  where  it  is 
transformed  into  grateful  submission  to  the  law  of  happi- 
ness. Biological  science  is  thus  irradiated  with  mysti- 
cal faith.  "  Nor  let  this  necessity  of  producing  im- 
mediate pleasure,"  he  says,  "  be  considered  as  a  degrada- 
tion of  the  poet's  art.  It  is  far  otherwise.  It  is  an 
acknowledgment  of  the  beauty  of  the  universe,  an 
acknowledgment  the  more  sincere,  because  not  formal, 
but  indirect ;  it  is  a  task  light  and  easy  to  him  who  looks 
at  the  world  in  the  spirit  of  love :  further,  it  is  a  homage 
paid  to  the  native  and  naked  dignity  of  man,  to  the 
grand  elementary  principle  of  pleasure,  by  which  he 
knows,  and  feels,  and  lives,  and  moves.  We  have  no 
sympathy  but  what  is  propagated  by  pleasure."  There 
is,  he  declares,  an  overbalance  of  enjoyment  even  in 
those  sympathies  which  are  excited  by  pain.  And 
then,  in  a  passage  which  is  probably  unsurpassed  for  its 
eloquence  and  its  tone  of  triumph  even  by  the  noblest 
pages  of  Sidney  or  Milton,  he  exclaims : 

"  The  knowledge  both  of  the  Poet  and  the  Man  of 
Science  is  pleasure ;  but  the  knowledge  of  the  one  cleaves 
to  us  as  a  necessary  part  of  our  existence,  our  natural 
and  unalienable  inheritance;  the  other  is  a  personal  and 
individual  acquisition,  slow  to  come  to  us,  and  by  no 
habitual  and  direct  sympathy  connecting  us  with  our 
fellow- beings.  The  Man  of  Science  seeks  truth  as  a 
remote  and  unknown  benefactor ;  he  cherishes  and  loves 
it  in  his  solitude:  the  Poet,  singing  a  song  in  which  all 
human  beings  join  with  him,  rejoices  in  the  presence  of 
truth  as  our  visible  friend  and  hourly  companion. 
Poetry  is  the  breath  and  finer  spirit  of  all  knowledge ; 
it  is  trie  impassioned  expression  which  is  in  the  counten- 
1.  2S 


434  WORDSWORTH  THE  CRITIC     [chap.xvii 

ance  of  all  Science.  Emphatically  may  it  be  said  of  the 
Poet,  as  Shakespeare  hath  said  of  man,  '  that  he  looks 
before  and  after.'  He  is  the  rock  of  defence  for  human 
nature ;  an  upholder  and  preserver,  carrying  everywhere 
with  him  relationship  and  love.  In  spite  of  dif- 
ference of  soil  and  climate,  of  language  and  manners,  of 
laws  and  customs,  in  spite  of  things  silently  gone  out  of 
mind,  and  things  violently  destroyed,  the  Poet  binds 
together  by  passion  and  knowledge  the  vast  empire  of 
human  society,  as  it  is  ^spread  over  the  whole  earth  and 
over  all  time.  The  objects  of  the  Poet's  thoughts  are 
everywhere;  though  the  eyes  and  senses  of  man  are,  it 
is  true,  his  favourite  guide,  yet  he  will  follow  whereso- 
ever he  can  find  an  atmosphere  of  sensation  in  which  to 
move  his  wings.  Poetry  is  the  first  and  last  of  all  know- 
ledge— it  is  as  immortal  as  the  heart  of  man." 

Of  all  the  famous  interpretations  of  poetry,  this  surely 
is  the  largest  in  scope,  the  most  philosophical,  the  most 
sympathetic.  And  as  an  example  of  English  prose  in 
the  grand  style,  it  is  equal  to  the  best  of  Hooker,  Milton, 
Taylor,  and  Burke,  and  quite  above  the  highest  level  of 
Dryden  and  Johnson.  One  ignorant  of  its  date  would 
hesitate  to  affirm  that  it  was  written  in  either  the  eigh- 
teenth or  the  nineteenth  century.  "  Things  silently 
gone  out  of  mind,  and  things  violently  destroyed  " — 
this  is  speech  of  an  older  vintage,  one  would  say,  from 
which  every  trace  of  crudeness,  every  local  taint,  every- 
thing but  what  is  perfect  and  immortal,  has  been  removed 
by  "  the  unimaginable  touch  of  time."  But  the  spirit 
of  the  passage  is  modern.  Its  recognition  of  science  as 
the  basis  of  poetry  is  more  than  modern ;  it  is  prophetic. 
And  so,  too,  is  the  perception  that  the  poet  carries 
"  everywhere  with  him  relationship  and  love."  We 
have  here,  on  the  one  hand,  the  austere  intellectual 
principle  which  saved  Wordsworth  himself  from  Roman- 
ticism, and  may  yet  save  the  world  from  the  superficial 
and  unreal  view  of  life  and  art  which  Romanticism  has 
encouraged;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  a  truly  religious 
conception  of  human  solidarity. 

Passing  over  an  important  defence  of  the  use  of  verse 
in  writing  poetry,  we  find  Wordsworth  plunging  again 


i8o2]  NATURALNESS  AND  ARTIFICE  435 

into  the  deeper  parts  of  his  subject.  Poetry,  he  tells  us, 
' ' takes  its  origin  from  emotion  recollected  in  tranquillity. ' ' 
It  is  thus  possible,  even  when  the  original  sensations 
were  painful,  to  hold  in  mind  and  reproduce  creatively 
only  such  emotions  as  will  give  us  an  "  overbalance  of 
pleasure."  He  meets  the  banal  objection  that  had  been 
raised  and  always  will  be  raised  against  some  of  his 
poems  by  admitting  frankly  that  his  method  may  some- 
times have  made  it  easy  for  him  to  give  a  false  importance 
to  matters  of  particular  rather  than  general  interest,  and 
that  thus  he  may  have  written  upon  unworthy  subjects. 
He  is  more  apprehensive  that  his  language  "  may  fre- 
quently have  suffered  from  those  arbitrary  connections 
of  feelings  and  ideas  with  particular  words  and  phrases, 
from  which  no  man  can  altogether  protect  himself." 
"  Hence,"  he  says,  "  I  have  no  doubt  that,  in  some 
instances,  feelings,  even  of  the  ludicrous,  may  be  given 
to  my  readers  by  expressions  which  appeared  to  me 
tender  and  pathetic."  With  characteristic  obstinacy, 
he  argues  that  it  would  be  unwise  to  attempt  to  alter 
these  expressions. 

It  is  appropriate  to  consider  at  this  point  a  supple- 
mentary statement  which  Wordsworth  added  to  the 
Preface  for  the  next  edition  of  "  Lyrical  Ballads  "  in 
1802.  He  attributes  the  use  of  the  so-called  poetic 
diction  to  the  vanity  of  poets,  and  especially  of  poor 
poets,  and  to  the  artificial  expectation  of  readers,  who 
have  been  led  to  associate  such  language  with  passion 
and  the  pleasure  derived  from  passionate  expressions. 
"  A  language,"  he  declares,  "  was  thus  insensibly  pro- 
duced, differing  materially  from  the  real  language  of 
men,  in  any  situation."  He  denounces  the  abuse  of  the 
"  pathetic  fallacy,"  by  which  human  feelings  are  attri- 
buted to  inanimate  objects,  and  sturdily  maintains  that 
in  works  of  imagination  and  sentiment,  "  in  proportion 
as  ideas  and  feelings  are  valuable,  whether  the  com- 
position be  in  prose  or  in  verse,  they  require  and  exact 
one  and  the  same  language."  He  agrees  with  Sir  Philip 
Sidney  in  holding  that  "  metre  is  but  adventitious  to 
composition,  and  the  phraseology  for  which  that  pass- 


436  WORDSWORTH  THE  CRITIC     [chap,  xvn 

port  is  necessary,  even  where  it  may  be  graceful  at  all, 
will  be  little  valued  by  the  judicious." 

John  Wilson  (Christopher  North)  was  in  1802  a 
student  at  Glasgow  University.  Although  only  seven- 
teen years  old,  he  took  a  keen  interest  in  intellectual 
questions.  He  was  one  of  the  first  to  see  the  importance 
of  "Lyrical  Ballads,"  and  on  Ma}^  24,  1802,  wrote 
Wordsworth  a  long  letter,*  inspired  by  reverence  for 
his  genius  and  modest  questioning  as  to  some  of  his 
methods.  "  That  .your  poetry  is  the  language  of 
Nature,"  he  says,  "in  my  opinion  admits  of  no  doubt. 
Both  the  thoughts  and  expressions  may  be  tried  by  that 
standard.  You  have  seized  upon  those  feelings  that 
most  deeply  interest  the  heart,  and  that  also  come 
within  the  sphere  of  common  observation.  You  do  not 
write  merely  for  the  pleasure  of  philosophers  and  men 
of  improved  taste,  but  for  all  who  think — for  all  who 
feel."  He  praises  the  poet,  in  rapturous  terms,  for  his 
discovery  of  the  "  wonderful  effect  which  the  appearances 
of  external  nature  have  upon  the  mind  when  in  a  state 
of  strong  feeling."  Admitting  that  he  was  at  first 
incredulous  as  to  the  effect  of  landscape  upon  human 
character,  he  says  that  upon  further  consideration  this 
theory  has  captivated  him,  and  he  runs  ahead,  in  eager 
schoolboy  fashion,  to  surmise  that  "  it  serves  to  explain 
those  diversities  .in  the  structure  of  the  mind  which 
have  baffled,  all  the  ingenuity  of  philosophers  to  account 
for."  .He  begs  the  poet  to  confer  with  him  in  some  broad 
consideration  of  this  sort.  Then  he  frankly  protests 
that  some  of  Wordsworth's  subjects  are  too  particular; 
they  cover  events  which  would  have  been  of  no  conser 
quence  to  an  unconcerned  spectator.  It  is  improper, 
he  thinks,  to  describe  these  in  poetry.  The  instance  he 
cites  is,  of  course,  "  The  Idiot  Boy." 

Although  coming  from  a  stranger  and  evidently  from 
a  youth,  this  letter  was  so  penetrating  that  Wordsworth 
felt  obliged  to  answer  it  seriously  and  at  considerable 
length.  As  an  apology  for  not  going  into  even  greater 
detail,  he  mentions  that  curious  nervous  affection  which 

*  See  Mrs.  Gordon's  "  Memoir  of  John  Wilson,"  p.  26. 


i8o2]  THE  SCENIC  FALLACY  437 

made  the  physical  act  of  writing  difficult  for  him : 
"  There  is  scarcely  any  part  of  your  letter  that  does  not 
deserve  particular  notice ;  but  partly  from  some  consti- 
tutional infirmities,  and  partly  from  certain  habits  of 
mind,  I  do  not  write  any  letters  except  upon  business, 
not  even  to  my  dearest  friends.  Except  during  absence 
from  my  own  family,  I  have  not  written  five  letters  of 
friendship  during  the  last  five  years/'  He  enters 
minutely  into  the  question  of  the  influence  of  external 
nature  upon  human  character,  declaring  this  influence 
to  be  very  general,  though  more  marked  in  some  regions 
than  in  others,  and  requiring  for  its  most  powerful  effects 
"  a  peculiar  sensibility  of  original  organization  com- 
bining with  moral  accidents,  as  is  exhibited  in  The 
Brothers  and  Ruth."  But  he  does  not  flinch  from 
his  original  statement  that  the  impression  of  external 
nature  is  felt  by  all  human  beings:  "  How  dead  soever 
many  full-grown  men  may  outwardly  seem  to  these 
things,  all  are  more  or  less  affected  by  them ;  and  in 
childhood,  in  the  first  practice  and  exercise  of  their 
senses,  they  must  have  been  not  the  nourishers  merely, 
but  often  the  fathers  of  their  passions."  This  effect  is 
shown,  not  in  individuals  merely,  but  upon  the  national 
character  of  small  homogeneous  peoples  "  in  tracts  of 
country  where  images  of  danger,  melancholy,  grandeur, 
or  loveliness,  softness,  and  ease  prevail."  Wordsworth 
is  here  attempting  to  give  scientific  expression  to  a 
popular  opinion  which  has  been  greatly  misused  by 
poets,  novelists,  and  biographers.*  It  is  a  theory  which 
appears  as  if  it  could  not  stand  a  careful  test.  If  Switzer- 
land, we  say  to  ourselves,  had  always  been  inhabited 
by  Dutchmen,  their  steadfastness  would  no  doubt  be 
attributed  to  the  inspiration  of  the  impregnable  peaks 
amid  which  they  dwelt.  We  derive  most  of  oar  ideas 
about  national  character  from  imaginative  literature, 
which  has  been  too  often  coloured  by  this  very  prepos- 
session, so  that  its  testimony  is  suspicious.  Scott  in 
particular  fairly  made  sport  with  popular  judgments  by 

*   Tor  instance,  by  Taine,  in  Iiis  "  History  of   English  Literature  "  and 
his  "  Life  of  La  Fontaine." 


438  WORDSWORTH  THE  CRITIC     [chap,  xvn 

representing  so  many  of  his  countrymen  as  the  hardy 
nurslings  of  mountain,  crag,  and  torrent.  It  is  singular 
that  this  influence  should  have  generally  confined  itself 
to  the  male  sex,  or  have  produced  in  women  the  opposite 
effect  to  that  produced  in  men,  for  most  of  his  Scottish 
heroines  are  remarkable  for  gentleness  rather  than 
austerity.  One  may  well  hesitate  to  protest  against 
even  the  fullest  expansion  of  an  idea  so  fundamental  to 
Wordsworth's  philosophy  and  so  beautifully  exemplified 
in  his  poetry,  especially  as  there  is  scarcely  an  imagina- 
tive writer  in  any  literature  from  whom  further  illustra- 
tions might  not  be  drawn;  but  surely  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  what  we  might  call  "  the  scenic  fallacy." 

The  inquiry  should  be  based  upon  the  testimony,  not 
only  of  imaginative  writers,  who  are  likely  to  be  pecu- 
liarly subject  to  this  fallacy,  but  upon  the  events  of 
history,  upon  observation,  upon  a  survey  of  the  arts  and 
industries,  the  military  and  civic  performances,  the 
domestic  traits,  and  the  languages  of  various  peoples. 
We  children  of  the  nineteenth  century  like  to  feel  that — 

The  mind  is  its  own  place,  and  in  itself 

Can  make  a  Heaven  of  Hell,  a  Hell  of  Heaven. 

We  hold  in  high  esteem  the  doctrine  of  inherent  qualities, 
and  explain  them,  if  need  be,  by  reference  to  heredity. 
Yet  perhaps  Wordsworth  proved  himself  an  acute 
observer  and  a  true  philosopher,  by  emphasizing  the 
effect  of  environment.  It  is  at  least  more  encouraging 
to  suppose,  with  him  and  other  faithful  children  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  that  impressions  from  outside  are 
more  potent  than  heredity.  This  theory  brings  hope 
of  unlimited  improvement,  of  improvement  for  a  far 
larger  number  of  human  beings  than  those  whom 
heredity  can  save.  Granting  that  external  natural 
objects  affect  human  character  at  all,  it  is  evident, 
from  the  constant  presence  of  such  objects,  that  if  a 
race  remains  for  many  generations  under  their  influence, 
the  effect  must  show  itself.  Other  things  may  pass 
away — economic  arrangements,  religious  beliefs,  culture, 
government,  and  all — but  mountains  will  still  lift  up 


i8oi]  LETTER  TO  JOHN  WILSON  439 

the  hearts  of  men  and  draw  forth  their  thoughts,  how- 
ever insensibly.  Wordsworth's  view  was  profoundly 
philosophical.  The  philosophy  was,  even  in  this  par- 
ticular instance,  that  of  the  Enlightenment.  It  con- 
tained encouragement  for  those  who  believed  that  hu- 
manity could  be  indefinitely  improved  through  changes 
from  without.  And  at  the  back  of  this  active  faith  lay 
an  assurance  that  man  himself,  the  object  of  this  pro- 
cess, was  fit  for  development,  was  essentially  perfectible. 
There  is  nowhere  in  Wordsworth's  prose  writings  a 
plainer  expression  of  his  democratic  principles  than  the 
part  of  his  letter  to  Wilson  which  deals  with  that  young 
man's  objections  to  "  The  Idiot  Boy."  It  occurs  in  a 
passage  so  weighty  with  disregarded  truth  that  it  should 
be  carefully  read.  Moreover,  it  is  pleasant  to  think  of 
Wordsworth  unbosoming  himself  so  modestly  and  yet 
so  confidently  to  his  unknown  correspondent,  and  in 
terms  so  eloquent : 

"  You  begin  what  you  say  upon  '  The  Idiot  Boy  ' 
with  this  observation,  that  nothing  is  a  fit  subject  for 
poetry  which  does  not  please.  But  here  follows  a  ques- 
tion, Does  not  please  whom  ?  Some  have  little  know- 
ledge of  natural  imagery  of  any  kind,  and,  of  course,  little 
relish  for  it;  some  are  disgusted  with  the  very  mention 
of  the  words  pastoral  poetry,  sheep  or  shepherds;  some 
cannot  tolerate  a  ghost  or  any  supernatural  agency  in 
it ;  others  would  shrink  from  an  animated  description  of 
the  pleasures  of  love,  as  from  a  thing  carnal  and  libidin- 
ous ;  some  cannot  bear  to  see  delicate  and  refined  feel- 
ings ascribed  to  men  in  low  conditions  in  society,  because 
their  vanity  and  self-love  tell  them  that  these  belong 
only  to  themselves  and  men  like  themselves  in  dress, 
station,  and  way  of  life;  others  are  disgusted  with  the 
naked  language  of  some  of  the  most  interesting  passions 
of  men,  because  either  it  is  indelicate,  or  gross,  or  vulgar ; 
as  many  fine  ladies  could  not  bear  certain  expressions 
in  '  The  Mother  '  and  '  The  Thorn,'  and,  as  in  the  in- 
stance of  Adam  Smith,  who,  we  are  told,  could  not 
endure  the  ballad  of  '  Clym  of  the  Clough,'  because  the 
author  had  not  written  like  a  gentleman.  Then  there 
are  professional  and  national  prejudices  for  evermore. 
Some  take  no  interest  in  the  description  of  a  passion  or 


44Q  WORDSWORTH  THE  CRITIC     [chap,  xvn 

quality,  as  love  of  solitariness,  we  will  say,  genial  activity 
of  fancy,  love  of  nature,  religion,  and  so  forth,  because 
they  have  little  or  nothing  of  it  in  themselves;  and  so 
on  without  end.  I  return  then  to  the  question,  Please 
whom  ?  or  what  ?  I  answer,  human  nature  as  it  has 
been  and  ever  will  be.  But  where  are  we  to  find  the 
best  measure  of  this?  I  answer,  from  within;  by 
stripping  our  own  hearts  naked,  and  by  looking  out  of 
ourselves  towards  men  who  lead  the  simplest  lives  and 
most  according  to  nature;  men  who  have  never  known 
false  refinements,  wayward  and  artificial  desires,  false 
criticisms,  effeminate  habits  of  thinking  and  feeling,  or 
who,  having  known  these  things,  have  outgrown  them. 
This  latter  class  is  the  most  to  be  depended  upon,  but 
it  is  very  small  in  number.  People  in  our  rank  in  life 
are  perpetually  falling  into  one  sad  mistake,  namely, 
that  of  supposing  that  human  nature  and  the  persons 
they  associate  with  are  one  and  the  same  thing.  Whom 
do  we  generally  associate  with  ?  Gentlemen,  persons  of 
fortune,  professional  men,  ladies,  persons  who  can  afford 
to  buy,  or  can  easily  procure  books  of  half-a-guinea 
price,  hot-pressed,  and  printed  upon  superfine  paper. 
These  persons  are,  it  is  true,  a  part  of  human  nature, 
but  we  err  lamentably  if  we  suppose  them  to  be  fair 
representatives  of  the  vast  mass  of  human  existence. 
And  yet  few  ever  consider  books  but  with  reference  to 
their  power  of  pleasing  these  persons  and  men  of  a 
higher  rank:  few  descend  lower,  among  cottages  and 
fields,  and  among  children.  A  man  must  have  done 
this  habitually  before  his  judgment  upon  '  The  Idiot 
Boy  '  would  be  in  any  way  decisive  with  me.  I  know 
I  have  done  this  myself  habitually;  I  wrote  the  poem 
with  exceeding  delight  and  pleasure,  and  whenever  I 
read  it  I  read  it  with  pleasure." 

Some  idea  of  the  seclusion  in  which  the  poet  lived 
may  be  gathered  from  a  letter  to  Francis  Wrangham, 
written  early  in  1801,*  in  which  he  remarks  that  he  has 
not  yet  seen  the  second  volume  of  "  Lyrical  Ballads,'' 
although  it  has  been  out  a  month.  "  We  live,"  he  says, 
"  quite  out  of  the  way  of  new  books.  I  have  not  seen 
a  single  one  since  I  came  here,  now  thirteen  months 
ago."  He  excuses  himself  for  not  going  to  visit  his 
friend    at   his  parsonage   at   Hunmanby  in   Yorkshire, 

*  "  Letters  of  the  Wordsworth  Family,"  I.  140. 


i8oi-i8o2]  MARY  HUTCHINSON  44 t 

because  he  is  not  strong  enough  to  walk,  and  too  poor 
to  ride.  Hunmanby  is  not  far  from  Gallow  Hill,  where  he 
and  his  brother  John  had  spent  three  weeks  with  Mr. 
Hutchinson,  their  farmer  friend.  "  Mr.  Hutchinson's 
house,"  he  adds,  "  is  kept  by  his  sister,  a  woman  who  is 
a  very  particular  friend  both  of  my  sister  and  myself. 
If  ever  you  go  that  way  it  would  be  a  great  kindness 
done  to  me  if  you  would  call  on  them,  and  also  at  any 
future  period  render  them  any  service  in  your  power:  I 
mean  as  to  lending  Miss  Hutchinson  books,  or  when 
you  become  acquainted  with  them,  performing  them  any 
little  service,  aupres  de  Monsieur  ou  Madame  Langley 
[Mr.  Langley  was  Mr.  Hutchinson's  landlord]  with 
respect  to  their  farm.  Miss  Hutchinson  I  can  recom- 
mend to  you  as  a  most  amiable  and  good  creature,  with 
whom  you  could  converse  with  great  pleasure." 


END   OF   VOL.   I. 


ItlLLiNC;    AM)    S"NN,    LTD.,     PNINTKRS,    GUILDfOKn,    I.SoLANn 


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